


A Fire at Night

by superyuui



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alcohol, Asphyxiation (Brief), Canon levels of domestic abuse between the dads, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Death of a Foal, Fade to Black, I played fast and loose with like all of the Welsh mythology here, KuroFai Olympics 2020, M/M, NSFN, No Drunk Scenes, No Gore, Phantom Limb Pain, Post-Canon, Swearing, Welsh themes, apparently i enjoy writing alternating POVs so there's that, not safe for newbies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superyuui/pseuds/superyuui
Summary: Nestled in a valley of snow-capped mountains, empty houses stand watch over a frozen lake.Except for the nights where fire lights up the sky, magic doesn't exist here at all, and the trio of travellers soon learn that a language barrier is the least of their problems.Written for the 2020 KuroFai Olympics for Team Fluff and the Mythological Creatures prompt.
Relationships: Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58
Collections: 2020 KuroFai Olympics - Fluff vs Angst





	1. The Quiet Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crystalrequiem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalrequiem/gifts).



> This fic uses themes (but no spoilers) from the video game The Long Dark, and from Welsh mythology. Both have been adapted for use here. I wrote this as a pinch-hitter for team fluff and it definitely got away from me a little bit lol. It still needs some work but I could not have completed it to its current standard without massive help and support from CrystalRequiem and everyone else on Team Fluff and the KF Olympics Discord.
> 
> The language barrier plays a big part in this, and I've tried to do my best at keeping it clear who is saying what in which language. There are a mixture of things that Fai and Kurogane know in each others languages and a bunch of things they don't, and I've used different punctuation to indicate these instances. Hopefully it is straightforward to follow.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, please use [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdtCTVI_5qO6buLiIP0rih_q1Vb0RWJST-nlTK0iNyTHBPexQ/viewform) to score my fic and any of the other Olymfics from this year :)

There were many pleasant ways to land in a new world.

Face-down in a snow drift was not one of them.

Fai jumped up, coughing and spluttering. Snow and ice was sticking to his hair and his clothes, and he already felt numb in places from the chill in the air.

Surrounding him in every direction stood tall fir trees, their boughs weighed down by thick clusters of needles and frozen moss. Apart from the impromptu snow angel of his own making, the ground around him was carpeted in pure, unbroken snow. Tall hills arose on two sides and a shallow valley led off towards his left between them. The sun was hidden behind the trees or the hills or both, casting wide expanses of shadows across the snow-covered ground.

"Well, it's not the worst landing we've ever had, right?" he said with a bright laugh. He went unanswered, and as he turned to look around, the reason became clear:

He had landed all by himself.

Okay, well, nothing to panic about. They had just been scattered upon entering this new world - it's not like that had never happened before.

(Fai had never landed _totally_ alone before, either, but the others couldn't be too far away...)

(Please, don’t let the others be too far away.)

Fai shuddered suddenly, his teeth clacking together. Right. First order of business was to find shelter and warm up, and then find his companions. He couldn’t feel Mokona’s energy signature, but he could still try and locate them. He waved his hand through the air.

Nothing happened. Fai frowned. He waved his hand again - still, nothing.

An acidic weight settled in his belly. He exhaled shakily, his breath condensing in the frigid air. The realisation struck him like a face-full of snow, chilling him through to his core.

He had no magic.

Well… that explained the numb feeling, at least. It was right where his sense for magic ought to have been.

The cold wind tugged insistently at his cloak and he shivered, drawing it tightly around himself, wishing for the first time in months for his fur-lined coat. The clothes they had bought in their previous world, though they were made with cooler weather in mind, were not intended to protect from an environment as extreme as wherever Fai found himself now. He needed to get to shelter, and fast. However, with no way to know for sure if it was morning or evening – no way to know how much time he had to _find_ shelter - and no visible landmarks, he would really only be guessing at the right path to take.

Luckily, it seemed like his path would be chosen for him. A pained shout echoed through the valley.

"Syaoran," Fai muttered, his breath rising in clouds once again. "Syaoran!" he called, his voice echoing off of the hills. His feet crunched through the snow as he followed the source of the first sound he had heard, crossing the shallow valley and starting up the rise on the other side. He called once more, and in amongst the echoes came an answer - his own name, with the same strangled edge. Fai sped up as much as he dared, careful to not step in the wrong place. One slip would send him right back down the side of the hill, no matter how gradual of an incline it was. The sheer cold tore at his lungs with each inhale, his eyes stinging and watering. It was colder up there, somehow, even just a few metres higher. His cloak was getting heavy at the hem where it was soaked and waterlogged with melted snow.

Fai crested the rise and sagged with relief. There, a few metres away leaning against the wide, gnarled trunk of a barren tree, was Syaoran. Fai staggered towards him and enveloped him in a fierce hug. Syaoran tensed and made a pained noise which caused Fai to recoil with a jerk.

"Are you alright?"

Syaoran looked up at him. On first glance, he didn't seem much worse for the wear than Fai - his cheeks were red with the cold, and he too was shivering. He wouldn't let go of the tree, however, and was clearly favouring one foot over the other. The snow was disturbed into deep grooves behind the place where Syaoran stood, a clearly defind footprint on the one side and more of an unbroken trail on the other. He had injured his foot.

"Can you walk?" Fai asked.

"ぼく◆▲△■い," Syaoran replied, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. Fai’s heart sank – his lack of magic was not the only reason he couldn’t sense Mokona, it seemed. He chose a different tactic and, using his index and middle finger, mimed a person walking.

"Can you walk?" he repeated. Syaoran shook his head again in response, his lips pressed together in a tight line. He was holding it together well, but Fai was growing more concerned by the minute. Judging by the fading light, it looked like they had landed closer to sunset than sunrise - it would get much colder, soon.

"Okay," Fai said, under his breath, "okay, wait here," he instructed, gesturing with his hands, "I'm going to go-" he pointed further up the incline, "and look-" he mimed binoculars, "for shelter.”

"Kurogane◆△?" Syaoran asked. His eyes were sharp, searching, and he spoke through clenched teeth. "Mokona?"

Fai faltered, brought up short by the question. He had forgotten for a moment, absorbed in what he was doing, that half their party was still unaccounted for. Worry festered inside him at the reminder, a sick, acidic feeling in his gut. "I’ll look for them, too."

Syaoran waited, and Fai climbed. The wind blew harder at the edge of the small rise, and he squinted in an effort to see, tears falling from his watering eyes.

They were in the basin of a valley, surrounded by tall, snow-covered mountains on all sides. Conifers covered the land in every direction, with a couple of clearings dispersed sporadically throughout. There was what looked like a small scattering of buildings far away from where Fai stood, above which circled a trio of black birds, but it was much too far away to try and travel to before they lost the light. His heart sank and he swallowed thickly, his mind scrambling for alternatives. The second option they had, if he couldn’t find a house or a town, was to try and find a good cave or natural shelter – somewhere that could at least protect a fire.

There was still no sign of Kurogane and Mokona, not that Fai could have seen them in amongst all the trees, but they couldn’t linger any longer if he wanted a good chance of getting himself and Syaoran to safety. He carefully and methodically compartmentalised his worry – he trusted Kurogane to keep himself and Mokona safe. Fai’s priority was Syaoran.

While looking over the landscape again, something much more promising caught Fai's eyes. Between the trees not too far away curled a lazy funnel of woodsmoke. His heart leapt - where there was smoke, there were chimneys, and fireplaces, and warm beds.

"なに▲は◆か?" Syaoran asked once Fai had returned. Fai carefully took Syaoran's arm and draped it across his shoulder to help support his weight.

"I saw something," Fai said, gripping Syaoran tightly at the waist with his spare hand, the injured foot balanced between the two of them, "I think we should have enough time to get there."

With some difficulty, Fai and Syaoran carefully descended back down into the valley, following the tracks Fai had left in the ankle-deep snow. It was slow-going; Syaoran kept accidentally putting weight on his injured leg, and he almost caused them to topple over more than once. They were both breathing hard from exertion by the time they reached the bottom of the valley, and just as before, each inhale ached like daggers in Fai’s chest. Snow started to fall in heavy flakes from the sky, and the wind bit harder at the exposed skin of his face. Fai turned to Syaoran, shaking against his side - probably from pain and exhaustion as much as from the cold.

“Get on my back,” Fai said, as he turned and knelt down. Syaoran looked uncertain, and for a moment Fai worried that what he was asking was unclear. Syaoran shook his head slowly, said something Fai had no hope of understanding, and made to keep walking.

“We don’t have time!” Fai shouted above the howl of the wind, desperation creeping into his voice. “Get on my back!”

Visibly reluctant, Syaoran carefully did as he was told, and when he was secure, Fai rose back up to his full height. Syaoran was not the young teenager he had been when they had all first met, and while Fai was a far cry from “feeble” or “weak”, physical strength had never exactly been his forte. Still, even though he couldn’t walk his full speed, progress was much faster once he regained his balance - and not a moment too soon; the heavy snow was getting heavier.

Fai narrowed his eyes against the wind and the snow that it carried and pushed on, hoping that they got to their destination before they lost visibility, either to the storm or to the dying sunlight. The boreal forest seemed to stretch on endlessly in every direction, and every metre of progress looked the same as the last. Fai truly hoped he was going the right way, and not just piggybacking Syaoran in the wrong direction while the temperature plummeted and snowflakes fell in cascades.

Syaoran tensed and straightened up, disrupting Fai’s centre of gravity and causing him to stagger.

“△◆ません,” Syaoran said apologetically, and then exclaimed “▲だ!” He thrust his arm out, pointing towards something glinting through the trees. Fai started in that direction, catching the occasional glimpse of warm light between the tree trunks.

Not a moment too soon, they emerged into a break in the forest. A mound rose in the centre, overlooking the clearing, upon which perched a small cabin. Flickering orange light poured from its windows, glowing in the fast-approaching darkness, and smoke rose from the chimney pipe.

Rejuvenated, Fai trudged through the deep snow towards the cabin. He made it halfway across the clearing quickly, and relief began to bubble up in his chest, but was quickly snuffed out. Fai’s feet slipped out from under him, pitching him forwards with a startled yelp. Unbalanced as he was with Syaoran on his back, he couldn’t right himself, and they crashed down into the snow. Syaoran gave another pained cry – must have jarred his injury in the fall – and Fai struggled under their combined weight for a moment before he was yanked up by the hood of his cloak. He could barely see through his bleary waterlogged eyes, but he would recognise the silhouette of his rescuer anywhere.

“「Get Syaoran,」” he tried to say in his best approximation of Kurogane’s language, not knowing if Mokona was around to translate for him, “「he is hurt-」”

Whether Kurogane couldn’t understand him or whether he was just plain ignoring him, Fai didn’t know; instead of being left behind he was wrenched through the snow like a ragdoll. In the muddle, he had the vague disorientated feeling of being pulled upwards, and then his skin burned with sudden warmth and light flared behind his eyelids. He lay useless on the floor, his mind swimming, his body shivering and shuddering uncontrollably. Hot hands came to his collar, pulling him upright and tugging at his cloak, and he feebly tried to push them away.

“Syaoran,” he gasped raggedly, “「help Syao-」“

“「The kid’s fine, 」” Kurogane spoke over him, his native tongue confirming Fai’s fears of a missing Mokona, “動■ねぇ、“

Fai’s sluggish mind grasped clumsily at what he was being told, the meaning filtering in slowly - _Syaoran was okay_. The surge of adrenaline broke, and he sagged, held up only by Kurogane’s hands. His soaked cloak was pulled off of his back and he sucked in a breath at the rush of air, first cold and then increasingly warm.

“濡×○「clothes」●脱■×,” Kurogane said, “「you understand? 」”

Fai laughed nervously, scrunching his nose. “Not at all.”

Kurogane growled under his breath. “Clothes. Off.” He said, this time in what sounded like his best approximation of Fai’s language. Fai couldn’t stop giggling, once he had started.

“Is that really appropriate right now?”

Kurogane called him an idiot ( _that_ word was unmistakable to Fai, whatever the language) and Fai waved him away.

“I’m fine, I can do it,” he insisted, still inappropriately amused. “「I am fine.」 Help Syaoran, please.”

Fai removed his sodden clothes with fumbling fingers, exhaustion rolling through him in a fierce wave as the humour evaporated. Usually, he had his magic (or vampirism, when that had been a thing) to fall back on when he was tired or over-exerted. Without it, he felt every second that he had spent carrying Syaoran through the storm, and he _ached_ from the cold that had settled in his bones. He let his eyes close, let his head drop back against whatever he was leaning on, and drifted.

He didn’t know how much time had gone by when alertness slowly returned to him. A scratchy woollen blanket had been draped across his front, tucked up underneath his chin, and he was a fraction warmer than when he had been dragged into the cabin. His and Syaoran’s clothes, along with Kurogane’s cloak, were hung beside the wood burning stove in the corner of the room they occupied, the fire within it jumping and crackling. Syaoran was still in the armchair, his injured foot propped up on a wooden stool. The ankle was swollen and red, but no skin was broken that Fai could see. Syaoran was also covered in a blanket, and even though he looked as haggard and uncomfortable as Fai felt, he still managed a smile when he and Fai made eye contact.

“How are you feeling?” Fai asked. Syaoran just shrugged and closed his eyes.

“「He can’t understand you,」” Kurogane said in Japanese. He was squatting next to where Fai was sat on the floor, his hand a heavy comforting weight on Fai’s shoulder.

“「I know,」” replied Fai slowly, once the phrase had come to him. Kurogane’s red eyes appeared dark in the low light, fixed solely on Fai, bringing a pleased smile to Fai’s face. Fai placed his hand atop Kurogane’s, winding their fingers together, “Hi.”

“「Hey,」” Kurogane replied, an answering smile curling the corner of his lips, his rough thumb running lightly over Fai’s knuckles. “「You」 寒×?”

“寒×?” Fai repeated questioningly. He was sort of lucky that Kurogane often spoke in half-sentences, as he really wasn’t in the headspace to be translating long phrases at that moment. Kurogane said the word again and mimed shivering - cold?

“「No, I am not cold,」” Fai replied, using his new word. “I’m glad to see you.”

“「The pork bun? 」” Kurogane asked. He made no indication that he had understood the second part of what Fai had said, but sometimes that was just his way. Fai shook his head solemnly.

“I don’t know where Mokona is,” he murmured. “I hope they’re okay.”

“White thing is fine,” Kurogane said, his Ceresian broken. “It will… 戻♦︎□▽.”

Fai smiled thinly and nodded, reassured by Kurogane’s tone of voice in place of the words he didn’t understand.

Kurogane squeezed Fai’s fingers and rose, pulling him along. The blanket fell to the floor, displacing the air around Fai and causing him to shiver anew as he was lead over to the tiny bed in the corner. He promptly sagged under the covers, pressing himself flush against the wall to provide room for Kurogane to lay beside him. Kurogane hesitated, glancing at Syaoran, and Fai tugged his hand insistently. They were warm and safe; it was time to sleep.

Eventually Kurogane relented and the bed dipped under his additional weight. It wasn’t entirely comfortable for either of them, between Kurogane’s solid metal arm and Fai’s bony everything, but as Fai snuggled in closely and listened to Kurogane’s breathing, he decided that it was far more appealing than sleeping in that snow drift.

He closed his eyes, and dreamed of a battlefield in the sky.


	2. Get Friendly in High Places

When Kurogane woke up the next morning, he was alone in the old bed. He hadn’t slept very well overnight; the wind had rattled the roof tiles and window panes, and Fai had tossed and turned all night long, muttering under his breath in the language that Kurogane only barely understood.

The day before, Kurogane had landed all alone in the snow without a clue about where he was or to where his family had been flung. He had wandered in the freezing taiga for what felt like hours before he found the lone cabin, empty and unlocked. He methodically built a fire in the wood burner, needing to warm up and hoping beyond hope that the smoke would draw the mage, the kid, and the pork bun to him – and thanked whatever god that was watching when it worked. The mage had stumbled into the clearing below the cabin like an answered prayer and, without even pausing to throw his cloak back on, Kurogane had sprinted out to fetch the two of them. It had been blowing a gale, the howling wind baying for blood, when Kurogane pulled them inside. The mage was shivering, soaking wet and half-delirious, and the kid had suffered a worse sprained ankle than Kurogane had seen in some time. Team Medic wasn’t often a role that Kurogane had to take (usually _he_ was the one being patched up) but Fai was only borderline conscious by that point, and yet still insisted that Kurogane see to the kid first.

In the end, when both were dry and warm and sleeping, Kurogane lay awake, Fai resting directly above Kurogane’s still-racing heart. The same thought kept going around in his head: that it hadn’t taken much at all for two of the people he cared most about to be in serious danger, and that he was reduced to doing nothing but waiting for them to find him.

The grogginess fogging Kurogane’s mind that morning was no surprise given how badly sleep had evaded him, really.

The greasy smell and hissing sound of cooking meat alerted his senses, drawing him back to the present. Kurogane sat up, the bed creaking dangerously beneath him, and took stock of what was going on. Not a lot had changed overnight; apart from the bed, the room contained some shelves and a beaten-up chest of drawers, upon which sat a tiny mirror and other bits of abandoned junk. There was an empty workbench at the foot of the bed, the stool from which had been commandeered to prop the kid’s injured ankle up. The light filtered in weakly through the grimy windows, the small room lit mostly by the fire in the stove.

The kid himself was still in the dusty armchair. The swelling in his ankle looked like it had gone down, though the joint and heel had been utterly overtaken by a large purple and blue bruise - not that Syaoran appeared too put-out by it; his nose was already buried in a book, his facial expressions changing subtly every so often to reflect whatever it was he was reading. The mage prodded and turned something over in a pot he had over the stove to Kurogane’s right, looking no worse for wear even after carrying the kid through the snow and suffering with broken sleep.

It occurred to Kurogane as he watched the mage cook and the kid read that the only truly odd part of that morning - apart from him being the last of them to wake up, and apart from the absence of the loud pork bun - was that nobody was chatting very much. That, too, made sense once he remembered that they couldn’t understand each other.

“«Morning!» х@$@ш@ ли спа&£#%?”

Not that that would stop Fai, of course.

“I’m hungry?” Fai announced in Kurogane’s Japanese, looking expectantly at him.

Kurogane squinted at him. “What?”

“I’m,” Fai repeated, pointing at Kurogane and then his stomach, “hungry?”

“ ‘Are you hungry?’ “

“«Oh» - are you hungry?”

“Right,” Kurogane approved, casting a wary glance over at what was cooking. He had gone through all of the cupboards in the cabin the day before, when he had still been alone, and all he had found was a very old can of soup - definitely not the chunks of meat which were sizzling in the pot. “What is it?”

“к&@ли%,” Fai said. Kurogane stared at him, uncomprehending, and Fai’s pleased expression turned thoughtful. With his fingers, he mimed an animal with long ears which moved by bouncing along.

“Rabbit,” Kurogane supplied. And then, not to be outdone, tried to repeat what Fai had called it. Even to his untrained ears, his pronunciation sounded awful and stuttering in comparison to the way the syllables rolled off of Fai’s tongue, but the delighted grin he received for even attempting Fai’s language was worth it.

“«Rabbit»,” the kid repeated, also in Ceresian, and Fai clapped cheerfully for him in praise. Syaoran smiled widely, and then looked back to Kurogane, apparently to tackle the word in Japanese. “Ra…”

“Rabbit,”

“Rabbit.” Syaoran said successfully.

Well, they had _one_ common word between them, now.

There wasn’t nearly enough food to fill their stomachs, especially when split between three people. They would have to keep moving – they needed to find the white bun, and if not, they either needed to find a town or at least for more food and first aid for the kid’s ankle – and that led Kurogane back to what had been his initial concern the day before (until he had caught sight of the mage carrying the kid in the middle of a snowstorm, that is).

“I can’t draw my sword,” he said. He was met with two puzzled looks, and so he gestured as if he was pulling Ginryuu out from the air, to no effect, “and your eyes are grey.” Kurogane said to Fai, and judging by Fai’s non-reaction, his lack of magic wasn’t exactly news to him.

Syaoran’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he realised the implications of what Kurogane was trying to say. He drew his hands together in the motion he often used to channel his magic and frowned in concentration, and then released it just as fast. He shook his head.

“▲くの◯■×は▲せ◆…” he said, dejectedly.

Kurogane had suspected as much, given their general state the previous evening, but confirming the lack of magic in their entire travelling party complicated things quite thoroughly. Magic accounted for almost all of their defensive power, in one way or another, and coupled with the absence of the white bun it painted a picture that was growing more and more troubling.

“We need to keep moving,” Kurogane said, after Fai had finished jabbering on about something or other. Again, he drew nothing but blank stares. They got it eventually, after some embarrassingly exaggerated miming and gesturing on his part which left him scowling - this entire situation was getting very annoying, very fast.

“Still snow,” Fai said in Japanese, his pronounciation good but vocabulary lacking, squinting out of the filthy windows, “looking cold.”

“Not much we can do for that,” Kurogane replied, more worried about getting the kid around. He didn’t think Syaoran’s ankle was broken, but it definitely looked painful, and probably shouldn’t be walked on. However, neither he nor Fai (especially not Fai, as proven) were able to carry the kid over long distances anymore. Syaoran put his book and blanket aside and swung his leg down off of the stool.

“Hey-“ Kurogane started towards him, but Syaoran raised his hand to stop Kurogane in his tracks.

“ぼく■▲,” he said, and though Kurogane didn’t understand the words, he easily recognised when Syaoran wouldn’t be deterred from something he wanted to do. Syaoran stood up on his good leg and carefully placed his injured foot down on the floor. “ぼく■▲,” he declared once more, and started walking the length of the small room. He was limping heavily, but he was moving. Kurogane caught Fai’s eyes over Syaoran’s bobbing head as he passed between them, and Fai shrugged one shoulder. _What can we do?_

Kurogane hissed a long sigh out from between his teeth. He didn’t like it, but it was probably the only choice they had.

Packing up was a quick affair – Mokona usually held most of their belongings for them, so they didn’t really have anything _to_ pack up. They didn’t even have anything spare to leave behind for the person who owned the cabin as payment for the wood they had burned.

The lack of Ginryuu was on Kurogane’s mind constantly. He had thought that Fai must have found a weapon of some kind, given what he had managed to serve for breakfast, but sadly Kurogane had only been half right. The “weapon” was a small knife; sharp, but only about 3 inches long. Great for preparing food, probably not so great in a fight. Kurogane shoved it into his pocket.

Once they were outside, and the door was firmly shut behind them, another issue arose: Which way should they go?

Kurogane glanced up to judge the sun’s position; the sky was clear, despite what Fai had said about the weather (he must’ve been referring to the snow on the ground, of which there was a _lot_ ). The overnight snowfall had covered their tracks, but Kurogane remembered that the direction the mage and the kid had staggered in from the night before was roughly south-west. Without being able to talk to them properly, there was no way of asking if they had travelled far to reach the cabin - he assumed, given the state of them at the time, that they had. Going back south-west was probably not worth-

A thud sounded behind him and he spun around in time to catch Fai perching on the roof of the cabin, his feet dangling and dislodged snow dripping to the ground.

“What are you doing?!”

“Looking around,” Fai replied. Technically, the words Fai used meant ‘keeping watch’, but Kurogane gathered his meaning pretty easily, what with him shielding the sun from his eyes and, well, _looking around_. “Ah!” Fai exclaimed, pointing towards the south east. From Kurogane’s position, all he could see was another hill.

“What is it?”

“It is a… tent? «No»…” Fai was waving his arms in the air, as if he could summon the right words with interpretive dance, continuing in a mix of his own language and what he knew of Kurogane’s, “«It’s a» tall… keeping watch. Tent.”

“も△みの◆■?” Syaoran interjected.

“«What did he say?»”

“I don’t know-“

The two of them started to talk over one another in their respective languages. Kurogane pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten.

“Are we going that way?” he asked loudly, once he had gotten to three, pointing the way Fai had done. “«That way?»”

Fai nodded resolutely, and then waved his hands in front of himself, presumably for Kurogane to grab hold of.

“Assist me.”

Kurogane snorted and folded his arms.

“You got up there on your own just fine; you can ‘assist’ yourself.”

Fai stuck his tongue out before attempting to get down, which proved to be an entire production on its own. He rolled onto his tummy and, with so much bum-wiggling that Kurogane strongly believed it was solely to antagonise him (it had little effect because the pants covering said bum were absolutely soaked with wet snow, Kurogane acknowledged with vindictive satisfaction), lowered himself from the roof with catlike grace. Without even exchanging a word, the two of them sandwiched Syaoran between themselves before the kid could charge off on his own, each of them taking one of his arms across their shoulders. Syaoran made noises of protest which were immediately shushed by Fai, even though neither of them would have had a clue what the other was saying.

“Come on,” said Kurogane, urging them towards the direction that Fai had pointed. “Let’s find the ‘tall keeping watch tent’.”

The three of them started off towards the south-east, the procession reminding Kurogane of groups of drunkards helping each other home after a long night. Their footsteps in the snow were odd and arrythmic, and Syaoran kept trying to put weight on his bad foot – though whether it was out of habit or stubbornness, Kurogane wasn’t sure. Every now and then Fai would become distracted by something or other and point to it, jerking his whole body to the side and causing the group to stumble, until Kurogane reached up from under Syaoran’s shoulder and thwacked Fai on the back of the head to make him stop. Fai seemed content to natter on to pass the time, and the only thing stopping it from reminding Kurogane of their time in Yama (before they had run into the army, before Fai had played mute for everyone but him for six whole months) was that Syaoran kept attempting to answer him. Kurogane’s name popped up every now and then, the teasing tone in Fai’s voice more explanatory than the words he used, but without Mokona there to echo him it sounded stunted and unfinished. Still, Kurogane made the effort to grumble noncommittally. He believed what he had said to Fai the night before; that the white bun thing was probably fine, wherever it was.

“So,” Kurogane started later, once they had climbed three small hills and wandered in what felt like a completely aimless way for far too long, “by ‘tall keeping watch tent’, you meant a _watchtower_.”

They stood at the base of another hill – this one significantly taller and steeper than the ones they had just traversed in their weird little wall formation – upon which was built an old wooden watchtower. It stood several storeys high off of the ground, judging by the number of flights of stairs leading up to its platform, and at the very top appeared to be an enclosed hut with windows that went all the way around. It was snow-capped, just like the rest of the surrounding scenery, and even from a good few yards away Kurogane could hear the wood creaking and popping as it expanded in the weak midday sunlight.

“I said ‘watchtower’,” Fai insisted blithely.

“You absolutely did not say ‘watchtower’—"

“Kuro-shko’s ears are broken.”

“I’ll break _your_ ears—"

Syaoran nudged them both along while they bickered, and once they made it to the base of the first set of stairs, separated himself from the pack. With some further broken sentences and gesturing, Kurogane worked out that Syaoran wanted to wait for them to go and see what they could see, rather than attempting the climb himself. It was absolutely farcical that all Kurogane had to give the kid to defend himself against the god-knows-what that could’ve been out there was the stupid 3-inch blade, but there really was nothing else he could do apart from maybe find a good rock, and any of those were buried in snow.

The wind grew stronger as he climbed higher and further away from any natural wind barriers, but the stairs felt solid and unmoving beneath him and the railings did not give an inch. The structure was entirely secure, and upon realising this, he sped up a little. There was a narrow deck which wrapped around the lookout hut, with waist-high safety railings, all also made from wood.

In the interests of keeping Syaoran waiting for as little time as possible, they divided the tasks between them; Fai, with his sharp archer’s eyes, would scout the landscape while Kurogane picked through whatever might be of use within the hut. The hut was unlocked, which struck Kurogane as odd (the mechanism was there, it was just not in use), but the cabin they had spent the night in had been unlocked too, so maybe people were just like that in this world. It was marginally warmer inside the cabin compared to the outside, solely because of the respite from the wind, and Kurogane took a moment to shake the snow from his cloak before it could melt into the fabric.

The inside of the watchtower hut was only sparsely furnished. There was a single cot in the one corner, a pot-bellied iron stove adjacent to it, and a single desk and chair on the opposite wall. There were some papers on the desk – none of which he could read himself, but there were a couple that he pocketed in the off-chance the kid could make some sense of them. He tried the desk lamp, but the bulb had either blown or there was no power running to it, as nothing happened when he flipped the switch. Lastly, there was a small cabinet off to the side of the desk which contained nothing but newspapers and – judging by the smell of it – a very old carton of orange juice. Nothing of any value to them, in any case.

Kurogane returned empty-handed to Fai, who was leaning precariously over the railing, his hands bridged over his brow to shield his eyes from the overhead sun. The view from such a high vantage point was incredible. The sky was a deep, clear blue, and beneath it was a ridge of mountains which bordered an endless sea of needle-leaved trees.

“See anything?”

“«Maybe,»” Fai replied, pointing out across the landscape. Kurogane squinted hard, shielding his own eyes from the harsh sunlight that was reflecting off of the pure white snow, and could just about see what Fai was indicating – there was a clearing in the trees perhaps a mile or two away from the watchtower. In the clearing he saw some small clusters of dark shapes, which together formed a sort of semi-circle around a frozen lake at the base of more trees and hills. It almost looked like a small fishing village, if not for the lack of boats and – as far as Kurogane could tell – fishermen. There didn’t look to be any landmarks between them and the lake, apart from the mountain range, so they would have to be careful to make sure they were moving in the correct direction. Even taking that and Syaoran’s injury into consideration, he didn’t think there would be any reason they wouldn’t be able to make the journey before night fell.

“Let’s try it,” he said. “Can you sense the pork bun?”

Fai shook his head. Kurogane almost didn’t worry about it. He definitely didn’t picture finding Mokona frozen to death in the snow, as he had also pictured Fai and Syaoran constantly the night before, and he definitely didn’t feel his chest sieze in panic at the thought.

Kurogane placed a hand on Fai’s lower back to ground himself. Fai was skinny and noodly but he was solid, and though Kurogane couldn’t feel it through the layers he was _warm_ and his muscles were shifting with movement, and he was looking around at Kurogane quizzically. Kurogane barely knew the words for what he wanted to say in his own language, much less in Fai’s, and so he settled for leaning in close and pecking Fai on the lips. Fai smiled at him, his eyebrows pinched together in curiosity, and took a step closer. He pulled Kurogane down by his collar and gave him a returning kiss that was sweet and lingering. His lips were cool but his mouth was anything but, and Kurogane wrapped his arms tightly around Fai until there was barely a pocket of air remaining between them. A flush of relief spread through him, filling him up from his chest to the ends of his fingers and toes.

Using words to convey these feelings didn’t come easily to him, but kissing Fai was the easiest thing in the world.

Fai indulged him a while longer, after which they descended the tower to find that the kid had done some of his own scouting. He stood a few yards away from the foot of the stairs, and he held a thick, sturdy-looking branch under his arm like a crutch. He waved them over urgently.

In the snow near his feet were several sets of tracks. The tracks were shaped like canine paw prints, but they were much larger than Kurogane would have expected from something like a dog, or even from something like a wolf. They didn’t look particularly fresh, but given the overnight snowstorm, they couldn’t have been more than 8 hours old. Kurogane suddenly felt much worse about leaving Syaoran with nothing more than a fruit knife.

“Tр# в@$>а?” Fai said. He squatted beside the tracks and drew three dog-like shapes in the snow with his fingers. Syaoran said something long and flowing in his own language, but as before, Kurogane had no hope of understanding him, and from the look of it Fai was in much the same boat. A flicker of frustration crossed Syaoran’s face and, dejected, he let his comments drop. Fai squeezed Syaoran’s shoulder.

They travelled a lot more cautiously after Syaoran’s discovery. If the prints were made by wolves, there was no guessing how hostile and dangerous they might be, and if not, well…

Kurogane wasn’t quite sure what the end of that thought was.

The progress the group made was marginally better with Syaoran using his makeshift crutch, at least, which freed Kurogane up to devote more concentration towards ensuring they were travelling in the right direction. Luckily, the sky remained clear, and although this did not help with the cold, it definitely helped with visibility. As long as he kept the correct part of the mountain range ahead of them, Kurogane reasoned, they wouldn’t get lost.

An hour went by without incident, followed by another. At one point, the sound of howling echoed through the trees, and the three of them froze in their tracks, not even daring to breathe. The sound went unanswered, but Kurogane was quickly starting to hate how handicapped he felt without Ginryuu in reach; finding the pork bun and getting out of this frozen hellscape couldn’t come quickly enough. Even Fai was more subdued, and had traded his chattering for the occasional quiet comment. Syaoran had stopped talking altogether.

Eventually they turned a corner, and stretched out before them was the frozen lake they had seen from the watchtower.


	3. Teach a Man to (eat) Fish

The lake was much larger than it seemed from above. The buildings Fai had spotted from the watchtower were mostly grouped together in a loose semi-circle on the opposite shore, and were too far away for them to attempt reaching before they lost the light. Fortunately, there was another larger two-storey building on their side of the lake, as well as a number of even smaller fishing huts scattered along the surface of the lake itself, which Fai eyed with trepidation. He sincerely hoped there would be other dinner options.

Eager to get out of the cold, the three of them trudged down the slope and – just like the other two cabins they had discovered – bundled in through the unlocked front door. The hinges were old and they stuck, requiring a forceful shove from Kurogane, but it was worth it once they were inside and out of the chill.

The downstairs room was open plan, divided up by rows of tables and counters rather than by walls. One of the far walls had a section of filing cabinets and bookcases full of books (Syaoran’s eyes lit up, but he was expertly manoeuvred into a chair by Fai before he could even attempt to go and have a browse). Next to the door they had entered by was a the bank of chairs upon which Syaoran now sat and an empty coat rack, and off in the corner was a set of stairs leading up to the first floor. There were various leaflets and flyers and other flotsam scattered across the front desk, as well as an analogue radio which didn’t work when the dial was turned.

“電▲×♦︎□,” Kurogane muttered. “「Same as that watchtower.」”

Kurogane disappeared upstairs without a further word, his heavy footsteps thudding through the wooden ceiling above.

Fai had been in enough government-type buildings over the years to tell that this was of the same stock; the decrepit computer in the corner of the room indicated that they were in a fairly well-developed country, but the furniture was all chipped and scratched, and desperately in need of replacement. Cheap, worn carpet tiles covered the floor, the curtains that bordered the windows felt plasticky in his hands, and the walls were covered in what were once bright, information-rich posters.

A compact wood-burning stove of similar design to the one that had been in the cabin stood in a small kitchen area, above which a red box marked by a white cross was mounted to the wall. There were a couple of cabinets, all of which were empty, and a sink which didn’t have running water but groaned when the taps were turned. Fai found a large cooking pot and, once a fire was roaring in the little stove, set some snow to melt.

By the time Kurogane returned downstairs and Fai had finished nosing around, Syaoran had managed to take himself over to look at the bookshelves, his injured foot bare and held partially aloft off of the floor. The skin had bruised further since that morning, and though Syaoran didn’t show it, he must’ve been in a lot of pain. Fai had taken his distress upon seeing the injury and applied it towards finding something to help, and so was rooting through the cupboards. The red metal box on the wall next to the stove contained little tubes with pills inside, covered in writing that Fai couldn’t read, but that perhaps Syaoran could.

“「You’re cooking snow?」” Kurogane said, confused, drawing level with where Fai stood.

“It’s for water-「water.」” Fai said. He was finding that, though his Japanese was still spotty, the more he used it, the more it came back to him. “「See anything?」” he added, a perfect imitation of what Kurogane had asked him hours before.

“「Beds, clothes.」” Kurogane replied. “「How are you good at my language?」”

Fai smiled cheekily. “「Practise.」”

“「With who?」”

“It’s~ a~ secret~” Fai sang, and winked cheekily. He brushed delicately past, squeezing Kurogane’s natural arm as he did so, and took the pill bottles over to Syaoran. “Hopefully something here will help…”

Syaoran examined each bottle in turn. There were only three of them but the pills inside looked very different to one another, and Fai hoped that at least one of the bottles contained painkillers. One by one, Syaoran returned them to Fai with a shake of his head.

“「Sit, kid.」”

Kurogane thumped one of the chairs down beside Syaoran and, when Syaoran was seated, pushed it nearer to the bookshelves for him.

“Kurogane◆△, ■りが□” Syaoran said gratefully. Kurogane scruffed Syaoran’s head and replied in a gruff tone before addressing Fai in Ceresian.

“Food?” he offered.

“Yes, please.”

Kurogane blinked at him for a moment. “Where?”

Fai mirrored Kurogane’s confusion. “What?”

“「Is there food here?」” Kurogane growled, abandoning Fai’s language in favour of his own.

“ _Oh_ , uh, 「no」. Not that I could find.”

Kurogane made a contemplative noise, and watched him for another moment. The trepidation Fai had felt earlier returned, and the image of the fishing huts on the lake appeared unbidden in his mind to taunt him.

“Please tell me you found something to eat.” Fai pleaded quietly. To his dread, Kurogane produced the one thing he really didn’t want to see at that moment. He closed his eyes. “That’s a fishing line.”

“「Is it?」”

Fai couldn’t help it; he whined. “Kuro-samaaa-“

“「Fish is food.」”

“This is mean.「Mean!」”

“「You’ll live.」”

“At what cost?” Fai lamented, shoving the pill bottles back into the metal box.

Immune to Fai’s complaints, Kurogane left to go fishing. Syaoran was absorbed in the books he was reading off of the shelf and Fai found himself without anything to do until the snow melted and boiled. He felt restless and itched for something to pass the time, but there was nothing to cook, and while the building definitely could have done with a deep clean, he couldn’t find anything to clean with. He didn’t have any of his belongings to occupy himself like he would usually when they had downtime, and he couldn’t even use his magic as a last resort. He wandered around the downstairs of the building, hanging his and Syaoran’s cloaks and shoes by the stove to dry and tidying up some of the junk that was littered across the various worktops. With nothing else to do, he ventured upstairs.

The upstairs also consisted of a single room – more of a loft than a room, really – with a couple of narrow beds and chests of drawers. Although it was dusty, the bedding on the beds appeared to be clean, and there was a larger stove in the center of the wall which looked like it could be used for cooking as well as for warmth. It was a bit of an odd arrangement; a public, government-type office downstairs with sleeping quarters upstairs, but Fai supposed he had seen stranger things. He expected the drawers to be empty, but to his surprise, they contained a good assortment of winter clothing, folded up neatly within them. The clothes were all in earthy colours and emblazoned with the same embroidered logo – a simplified representation of the building with a lake and a mountain in the background. It was a good likeness, Fai thought, apart from the lack of snow.

There was a single window up in the loft, overlooking part of the lake and the surrounding forest of slender silver-barked trees. He watched the trees swaying gently as he shook out the dusty bedsheets, and was struck with an idea. He grabbed clothes from the drawer and pulled them on hurriedly.

“I’m just going to get something from outside,” he said to Syaoran, who looked up when Fai had descended the stairs, “I won’t be long.” Syaoran didn’t understand him at all, judging by the look on his face, but he waved back at Fai nonetheless.

It was still chilly outside, even with the sun high in the sky. There was a cluster of the silver birch trees around the side of the building at the edge of the alpine forest, nearer than those he had seen out of the upstairs window. Fai gathered the freshest twigs he could find, snapping the new growth off of the branches he could reach.

Fetching the ingredients was easy; preparing them proved to be a challenge. Kurogane had taken the one knife they had along with him, so all Fai had to strip the twigs was a sharp stone he had found and his own fingernails. Syaoran watched him curiously, and Fai tried to explain what he was doing.

“I made this tea for Kuro-tan, when we were in Shura,” he said. He collected the stripped twigs together and deposited them in the pot of boiling water, “you know how bad your father is at getting his wounds seen to. That man is terrible at admitting when he’s in pain – sometimes I would make him this after a battle even if he seemed fine, just to be safe.” Of course, that hadn’t been the only thing they had drunk together in Shura. Fai was certain he had gone to bed tipsy more often than not; it was his only comfort, at that time, when he woke up every morning hungover and increasingly terrified Ashura would track him down the longer he stayed there. Even having Kurogane there hadn’t been much of a comfort to him, for the closer he and Fai became, the more nightmares Fai had.

He was thinking a lot more about Shura these days, he mused.

The tea brewed quickly, and though it tasted a little bit different to what Fai remembered, it was definitely potable. It was neither too sweet nor too bitter, and warmed the lingering chill from Fai’s skin.

Fai had his second idea of the day in short order.

“Kuro-tan might want some of this,” Fai said to Syaoran, lifting his mug up as he spoke. Syaoran nodded and said something in his lilting language, gesturing outside and then back at the bookshelf. Fai took that to mean that Syaoran would probably keep reading, and with one hand clutching a steaming mug and the other carrying a thick jumper, he stepped once more out into the frigid afternoon.

On the lake, smoke curled up from the chimney of the nearest fishing cabin, beckoning him forward like a crooked finger. Fai walked easily over the slippery ice (it was a skill he would probably never lose, even if they only visited tropical worlds for several years straight) and rapped on the wooden door with his knuckles. The door’s painted surface was flaking, and a shower of white flecks fell down as Fai knocked.

“Room service!” he chirped. The door was hinged to swing outwards, which was a bit fiddly given the juggling Fai needed to do to get it open with his arms full. The inside of the hut was practically empty, containing only the lit wood burner in the one corner and a hole in the middle of the wooden floor, inside which a rough hole had been carved into the ice. Kurogane was sat upright beside the wood burner, the fishing line in his hands extending into the hole in the ice. He squinted against the light at Fai and hastily Fai shut the door behind him, flopping down beside Kurogane so that their sides were pressed together from shoulder to knee.

“I thought you might be getting cold out here, but I see you’re doing just fine.” Fai explained, offering Kurogane the mug. Kurogane eyed it warily (which Fai thought was sort of unfair considering he was going to make Fai eat fish for dinner) but didn’t complain when he had had a mouthful, so he must have found it tolerable. He licked his lips, eyebrows drawn together, and he watched the liquid swirl in the mug. He shot Fai a look.

“「The tea from that army?」俺※■◯要▲,”

“I made it for Syaoran, and we ended up having a lot left over. I even had a mug~” he sing-songed. He caught sight of a bucket on the other side of Kurogane that he hadn’t noticed when he had first come in. Inside it were a handful of fish; they were small brown things, and they swam lazily around in the ice cold water. “「Lots of fish,」” he commented.

“Not enough,” Kurogane replied in Fai’s language. Fai pressed his lips together to keep himself from grinning; he a _dored_ that Kurogane was trying to learn to speak Ceresian for him, but if he made too much of a big deal about it, Kurogane was sure to get shy and grumpy and not try it again.

Kurogane gestured at the fish as if he expected Fai to gut them for him, and Fai gestured back to indicate that he would absolutely be doing no such thing. Kurogane openly laughed at him (it was a smirk and a ‘heh’, but it counted) and gave Fai the line instead. Fai didn’t have the heart to let Kurogane know that he had never fished without a pole in his life, and chose instead to sit there twiddling the line around and looking busy without paying too much attention to whatever Kurogane was doing to the poor fish. A strip of raw pink flesh was suddenly dangled right in front of Fai’s face.

“That’s awful!” Fai cried, pushing Kurogane’s hand away with his elbows so that he wouldn’t drop the line. Kurogane chuckled, a deep rumbling noise that always always did funny things to Fai’s insides, and Fai tried to not be too horrified when the strip of fish disappeared into Kurogane’s mouth. “I’m never kissing you again.” Fai declared.

“「You mean this-」“ Kurogane reached for the collar of Fai’s borrowed jumper and tugged him close.

“Noooo-!” Fai wailed, laughing despite himself, “do _not_ kiss me after eating that!” He turned his head away, wriggling but unable to break out of Kurogane’s hold. Kurogane pressed several hard kisses to the side of Fai’s cheek and jaw as Fai continued to laugh and fruitlessly try to shove him off. “「It’s so gross!」”

“「’Gross’, he says,」” Kurogane scoffed; “「sweet things are ‘gross’.」”

Fai turned back to retort on pure reflexive indignation, and that was when Kurogane caught him. The pleasantly herby taste of the tea Fai had brewed lingered on Kurogane’s tongue. His lips were deceptively soft, swallowing the moan Fai was too slow to suppress. Kurogane pulled back and Fai chased him, draping himself across Kurogane as he reclined back against the wall, his palms on Kurogane’s chest. Kurogane watched him, the amused glint in his eyes illuminated in the firelight.

“「Maybe not gross,」” Fai allowed, his voice low. He shifted, working one of his legs between Kurogane’s and _pressing_ , resulting in a huff and a pleased rumble that reverberated through Kurogane’s chest. Fai grinned, bumping their noses together, and kissed Kurogane again. Unrelenting, he felt more than heard Kurogane’s answering sound, felt his hands squeeze Fai’s behind. Fai canted his hips, pressing himself against Kurogane’s belly, and the world turned over. He ‘oof’ed, the air rushing out of him as his back hit the floor. Kurogane trailed wet, open-mouthed kisses down the column of his throat while he lay there, his chest heaving, his hands buried in spiky black hair. Kurogane bit the junction of his shoulder and neck, coaxing from him a ragged noise which echoed loud in the tiny space.

“We should- _aah_ … stop,” Fai panted. Even with the fire in the wood burner it was too cold, too draughty, for them to peel off the layers they were both cocooned in, and he especially didn’t fancy carrying on in messy clothes for the rest of the day – and yet, he made no effort to separate them, his thighs falling further and further apart so that Kurogane might settle his heavy weight between them.

Kurogane lifted himself up onto his arms and hovered above Fai. His face and neck were flushed, his hair sticking up where Fai had grabbed it. Around blown pupils, his eyes narrowed.

“「No.」” He replied, his tone allowing no arguments, a thrilled shiver racing up Fai’s spine under the commanding cadence of it. Fai grinned and pulled Kurogane down once more.

“Okay.” ~~~~

-

Fai felt simultaneously wrung-out and refreshed when he awoke later, as if he had slept for hours in the sanctuary of the fishing hut in the middle of the frozen lake. His dreams had been empty, the tension he hadn’t fully recognised that he was carrying was gone and without it he felt as light as air.

There was something else there, too. Something he had been missing. He grinned widely in relief, and pressed closer to Kurogane’s side. Kurogane snorted in his sleep, his breathing pattern changing.

“Good morning Kuro-sleepy,”

“Hn, hey,” Kurogane replied, voice laced with tiredness. He reached his arm up – the one that Fai wasn’t wrapped in – to rub his face. “What’s the time?”

“It’s still light out,” Fai said. The inside of the hut was dim, lit by the light pouring in through the gaps in the door frame and the fire that still smouldered inside the wood burner near their feet. “We only dozed for a little while.”

The arm Kurogane had rubbed his face with – the one he had traded for Fai’s very life, not that long ago – raised, and he cupped Fai’s cheek. Kurogane didn’t say anything, his eyebrows low and his gaze shifting back and forth between Fai’s eyes. Fai smiled, leaning into his touch. 

“You’re not speaking Japanese,” Kurogane surmised. Fai’s smile grew and he shook his head, blonde hair spilling around his shoulders where it had come loose from its tie.

“Mokona must be nearby,” Fai replied. He tried to feel for them and found it difficult, as magic was positively _surrounding_ the two of them at that moment, but not impossible; the strongest power he felt came from a particular direction. “I think Mokona is with Syaoran.”

“Good,” Kurogane groused, “That thing is gonna pay for dropping us here like that.”

Neither of them really felt like any more fishing with the sleepiness of their impromptu nap still lingering at the edges of their minds, and so they packed up the few things they had brought into the hut. Once his hair was tidy, Fai pushed the door open.

“Huh,” he said, pausing in the doorway. “Well, that explains that.”

“What explains what?” Kurogane asked, appearing at Fai’s shoulder, and then as he caught sight of what Fai had seen: “What the hell…?”

Contrary to what Fai had thought, it was not daytime at all. Night had fallen some hours ago from the look of it, the sky an inky blue and scattered with stars. Across the entire breadth of the sky were streams of light which shifted and undulated in colour and shape as if alive – an absolutely stunning aurora, and one of the brightest that Fai had ever seen. It made his skin prickle and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“It’s like the sky is on fire,” Kurogane said behind him, his voice full of awe.

“We should get back to Syaoran,” Fai suggested after a minute, when he had pulled his attention back. The aurora was mesmerising, and Fai’s thoughts were rushing around in his head and tripping over one another. “He will want to see this.”

“What is it?”

“Where I’m from, we call them ‘auroras’.”

“Is it safe?”

Fai’s initial response would have been ‘yes, of course,’ but he hesitated and considered the other developments. “I think so,” he hedged instead.

“Right,” Kurogane said, brushing past Fai and pressing the bucket of fish into his hand. “Let’s get going, then.”

They had barely taken ten steps away from the hut and were out in the open when a deep, thunderous growl sounded from behind them, vibrating up from beneath their feet. Across the ice advanced a group of four wolves – _huge_ wolves, with fur the same shifting colour as the aurora above, ears the colour of blood, and eyes that blazed with white fire. The shadows they cast split off into every direction, and as they picked up speed, their claws left deep rents in the surface of the lake.


	4. Under the Fiery Sky

Ginryuu phased into being with a burst of light, heavy and solid in Kurogane’s palm, and he couldn’t help the feral grin that spread across his face at the weighty feel of her. The wolves bared their teeth and snapped their maws, the sound eerily quiet in the night, not matching the appearance of their ferocity in the slightest. The pack leader charged towards Kurogane, its paws hammering on the ice.

“ _Tenma kuuryusen!_ ” Kurogane bellowed, slashing Ginryuu in a wide arc. The signature dragons leapt from his blade, screamed through the air towards their target – and passed right through the glowing fur, careening off and colliding instead with the side of the fishing hut. The wolf continued its advance without slowing, the distance closing rapidly under its massive strides. Kurogane brought Ginryuu up defensively, readying himself for impact. A shot of blue lightning whizzed past his face, raining magic upon the beast. The wolf recoiled, snarling noiselessly, its breath creating thick clouds in the frigid air.

With an almighty _snap_ , the fishing hut Kurogane had hit moments before cracked and caved inwards. The roof shingles slipped off and struck the ice in a shower of rubble. The wolves barely flinched, all four of them starting to advance.

“Our attacks went right through it,” Kurogane said through gritted teeth. These were not ordinary wolves; that much was abundantly clear.

“I do not think we will be so lucky if _they_ catch _us_ ,” came Fai’s reply. Fai launched another attack, the air crackling with magic as bolts shot towards the pack. As before, the wolves recoiled, and stopped in their tracks, but remained undamaged. “Quickly; let’s get back to Syaoran-kun.”

Kurogane didn’t need to be told twice. He was loathe to put his back to the wolves but regardless took off in the opening Fai had given them, listening all the while for the mage’s footfalls following just behind.

The snarling grew louder in Kurogane’s ears.

Another burst of blue light filled his vision just as Kurogane ducked into the porch of the snow-covered cabin. He barely paused to turn the door handle before he crashed bodily into it, the door flying open and banging against the interior wall with the force he had exerted. Once Fai was inside he slammed it shut again just as hard, the frame rattling, and cast around for something to reinforce it with. The bay of chairs was the nearest thing; he grabbed the edge of it (awkwardly, given that he still held Ginryuu) and dragged it across the floor until it covered the width of the doorway.

The sound of the wolves had died down apart from the occasional howl, replaced by the eery noise of… _music?_ He whipped his head around in search of the source but was beaten to it by Fai, who strode forward and snapped the radio off with a flick of his wrist. They were plunged once again into relative silence, broken only by the fire popping in the stove and the hissing of the light fixtures above which cast them both in a pale artificial glow.

“Well,” Fai said upon an exhale after a moment, a slight waver in his voice, “that was interesting.”

“ _Interesting_ ,” Kurogane repeated incredulously, “what the hell were those things?”

A creak and a thud sounded in the floor above them, and Kurogane brought Ginryuu up once more on reflex.

“Fai-san?” came Syaoran’s voice, muffled by sleep. He appeared at the top of the stairs, squinting down into the room below. “Kurogane-san?”

“We’re here,” Fai called, raising his hand in a wave, “we’re okay, we just had a little run-in outside, that’s all.”

Syaoran made his way carefully down the stairs towards them, every other step marked by the _thunk_ of his crutch. Kurogane sat heavily on the chair barricade, and rested Ginryuu across his lap. He had fought larger things than wolves in his time, _much_ larger things, but for some reason his skin remained prickled and his heart still hammered after this particular encounter. He had felt the ice reverberate under their footsteps, had seen their hot breath misting the air in front of their faces; they were as real as Kurogane himself, so _how_ had none of their attacks connected?

“Do you need help with those?” he heard Syaoran say. Kurogane cracked an eye open – somehow, the mage had not only kept hold of the bucket, but had not lost the fish in the scuffle. Kurogane raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t you have other questions, kid?”

Syaoran paused, frowning. Then, realisation as the fog of sleep cleared – “I can understand you!”

“That’s not what I-“ he stopped, another thought occurring to him, “you mean the white thing isn’t here?”

A shadow flitted across Fai’s face. He had been certain Mokona was here, after all, but if Syaoran didn’t know…

“Mokona isn’t here,” Fai confirmed, his tone hollow.

“But you said-“

“I know what I said, Kuro-wan,” he interrupted. He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back against the counters, “there’s a lot of… interference, right now.”

“I feel it too,” Syaoran added. “I thought it was just the sound of the aurora, but it’s definitely magic.”

“You can hear the aurora?” Fai asked. Syaoran looked at him oddly.

“You can’t?”

Fai’s face filled with concern. “How about you, Kuro-sama?” he asked hesitantly.

Kurogane shrugged his shoulders, his breath hitching in his chest as his left one twinged. “No,” he muttered, ignoring the pain for now, “I can’t sense anything like that.

“We can talk to each other,” Kurogane continued, “that means that the white pork bun is around here somewhere whether you sense it or not, right?”

Fai nodded in agreement, but still, the troubled expression remained on his face. It smoothed out quickly, and though the following smile wasn’t sickeningly fake, it wasn’t entirely honest either.

The three of them caught up with each other while Syaoran and Kurogane prepared the fish and Fai pretended to be doing something ‘important’ across the room. The poster Kurogane had given to Syaoran the day before, it turned out, was a notice to evacuate. The reason for the evacuation, Syaoran said, wasn’t clearly explained – it apparently mentioned a mix of events such as bad storms and animal attacks, but nothing more detailed than that. It did explain where the residents of the island had gone, and at the very least it eased Kurogane’s mind. He had been wary about so many abandoned dwellings with no signs of a scuffle or invasion of any kind, and while the suspicion wasn’t entirely quelled by an answer which effectively did nothing but wrap it all up in a vague little bow, he was inclined to believe it for the present. He had no reason not to, unless you counted the hulking great wolves which weren’t damaged by his or the mage’s attacks.

When he mentioned them and their glowing eyes, Syaoran perked up in his seat. He asked in detail about what the wolves looked like, an intensity in his expression that Kurogane recognised meant he had remembered something – a look which only increased the further he got in his questioning.

“You forgot one thing, Kuro-wan,” Fai interjected. He kept his distance, perching upon the side of the countertop by the fire, “when we were near to them, they didn’t make any noise. When we were back here at the cabin, it sounded like they were right behind us – but when I looked, they were still on the ice.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Kurogane replied, “they got louder the further away they were?”

“I know what they are,” Syaoran said. They both turned their attention to the kid, who was staring aside, unfocused, remembering. “I read about them this morning.

“The book in the hunter’s cabin was about local myths and legends,” he explained. “One story was about the _cwn annwn_ \- huge dogs which guide people to the otherworld. They sound just like what you described.”

“Did the book tell you how we defeat them?” Kurogane asked. He wasn’t ready to be guided to any kind of otherworld, mythical or otherwise, and they might have to fight them if they wanted to retrieve Mokona. Syaoran shook his head.

“They’re just a myth,” he explained with a shrug, “they’re not even supposed to be real.”

“We wouldn’t have had visions of the same thing without magical influence…” Fai said slowly, “and besides, Kuro-pon wouldn’t have sensed them if they weren’t really there, right?”

Kurogane shrugged his right shoulder. “Who knows.”

“We need the book,” Syaoran said. “It’s probably our best chance at understanding what’s happening.”

Kurogane shifted in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. The kid was right, but if the wolves were still out there – and they were, if the infrequent howling served as a reliable indication – how would they retrieve it? The kid’s ankle was no better after resting it for half of a day, given the state of the bruise blooming across his foot. The mage’s magic could disappear again at the drop of a hat, and Kurogane-

“I’ll go,” said Fai. He leaned back further on the counter, his blue eyes narrowed. “Now that I have my magic again, I can keep the wolves at bay if I come across them.”

Immediately, Kurogane didn’t like it.

“How will you find it?”

“Magic,” Fai replied.

“What if you lose your magic again?” He demanded, voicing his fear, “we don’t know anything about this world or what’s going on.”

“I’ll be fine without my magic; I’m much more used to this kind of cold. And besides-“ Fai grinned, “someone needs to eat all of that fish, and it isn’t going to be me!” ~~~~

Kurogane scowled. He _really_ didn’t like it, but Fai could often be as stubborn and bullheaded as the best of them, and this was clearly one of those times. He suggested going along with Fai but was immediately rebuffed; the mage insisted he would be faster alone, but there was something he wasn’t being told in the way Fai’s eyes slipped over to look at the oblivious Syaoran. Grudgingly, Kurogane agreed to stay and, after stealing _more_ clothes from the drawers in the upstairs loft, Fai once again disappeared into the night.

“Sorry, Kurogane-san,” the kid said, his eyes downcast and hard, “we could have stuck together, if not for me.”

“You can’t help getting injured,” Kurogane replied, scruffing his hair roughly for good measure, with enough force that the kid nearly toppled off of his chair.

“Still… I don’t like waiting.”

Me neither, kid. Kurogane thought. Me neither.

The time passed sluggishly, marked only by the irregular ticking of the clock on the wall. The fluorescent lights continued to flicker and falter overhead, the electricity in the circuits fizzing concerningly. Kurogane fetched wood from the outside store he had spotted earlier in the day, seeing no sign of the wolves that had chased them back from the hut. The night was clear and cold, and Fai’s footprints were illuminated by the convulsing aurora that painted the sky overhead. He watched it dance across the sky for a few spare moments, and wondered what it sounded like to the kid. He wondered if that was why the mage wanted him to stay behind.

He busied himself, first with stoking the fire and then with maintaining Ginryuu (even though she was perfectly sharp, as always). The kid read him some things he didn’t remember from one of the books on the shelf, and they eventually got around to eating the fish he had caught. Kurogane tucked away a portion for the mage, and tried to keep from glancing out of the windows.

Then, all the lights went out. The shadows engulfed and swallowed them whole. Everything in the room – including Syaoran – was suddenly lit solely around the edges from the fire in the stove. Without the buzzing of the electronics in the ceiling they were plunged into an oppressive quiet, and Syaoran sucked in a breath.

“オー▲◯” the kid said, his voice hushed.

Not a syllable of it made sense to Kurogane. He rushed to the door and wrenched aside the barricade for the third time that night. The outside of the cabin drowned in deep blackness, the glittering stars overhead a weak impression of the blazing aurora which had been there only moments ago. Even the footprints in the snow had been lost to the dark.

The wind rustled the tall trees around him and rushed violently in his ears.

The aurora had disappeared and, if he couldn’t understand Syaoran any more, it had taken the magic with it.

Shit.

He stormed back inside the cabin, intent on grabbing his borrowed coat and barrelling out into the night to retrieve the idiot mage. The kid still sat beside the stove, looking utterly devastated, but that was the last thing on his mind – he should already be out there, he should already be searching, he couldn’t afford to lose Fai as well as Mokona, he couldn’t, _wouldn’t-_

“Fai◆△はま△■って◆▲◆,” Syaoran said hollowly. Kurogane took a breath in through his nose, his lips pressed into a solid, thin line. He took another.

“He’ll be back,” Kurogane said flatly, once he was sure his voice wouldn’t betray him. He forced himself to close the door, forced himself to sit back down next to Syaoran, and forced himself to believe in Fai and wait for him to come back, as he said he would.


	5. A Woman, a Horse, and a Concussion (not in that order)

Fai slipped lightly down the gentle slopes of the narrow valley as if flying, his feet weightless beneath him.

In the dark, the trees loomed menacingly overhead, blotting out the sky in crosshatched lines. Their thin fingers reached for him, brushing at the back of his neck and his face, their touch as cold as icicles. Once or twice he heard the gasping snarls of the _cwm annwn_ , and each time he reminded himself that – as much as it made his skin crawl - it was _good_ that the noise was loud and that it rang in his eardrums like the tolls of a graveyard bell. The real danger would be when he could no longer hear the noise, but even then, with his magic he could repel them at the very least.

The path extended out before him, an invisible thread of otherworldly power that tugged at his core, and he chased it doggedly. He had first mistaken the sensation for Mokona’s aura, overflowing as it was with multi-dimensional potential, but Mokona’s power did not stir inside him in this way.

He had only half listened to Kurogane and Syaoran’s conversation about the wolves, his focus divided by the beckoning magic. He had jumped at the chance to search it out for himself, excuses falling off of his tongue faster than he could register them, and now as he flitted through the forest like a moth towards an intoxicating flame, he only felt vague regret for his lie of omission amongst the rush of excitement and adrenaline.

He came upon the clearing with the lone cabin much quicker than anticipated, without being slowed by Syaoran’s injury. Hurriedly he trudged up the slope to the door, opening it with a quick shove of his shoulder. In the doorway he paused, forcing himself to breathe steadily. He was here for the book, first and foremost. The power was secondary.

A will-o-the-wisp ignited from the ends of his fingertips and illuminated the dark space in blue light, the shadows falling differently to how they had when the room had been lit by the wood stove in the corner. The effect gave the room a feeling of _other_ , as if Fai had not been there that morning at all. 

The book was back on the shelf where Syaoran must have first found it, dust still clinging to its scuffed covers. Fai couldn’t read the language, of course, but the front was graced with a detailed illustration of a group of fairies riding dogs with short legs, so it was likely to be the right book. He shoved it into his borrowed satchel.

The door shut behind him smoothly as he stepped back out into the night, the latch clicking into place without too much force. His breath clouded in front of his face, and above him, the aurora continued to writhe and twist. Its colours were reflected upon the pure white snow of the clearing, broken only by his own footprints. It looked enchanting, all on its own, and again Fai felt the swell of magic in the air.

_“Can’t you hear it?”_ Syaoran had said. Fai frowned, his mouth twisting downwards. The things they thought they knew about the world they were in were rapidly becoming engulfed by the things they didn’t. Something as ordinary as an aurora couldn’t be the cause of all of the strange things that had happened that evening, but what other option was there – besides the strange power Fai had sensed?

Between the trees, a bright shape caught his eye. It flicked between the trunks, its colour the same shifting hue of the aurora above.

The pressure of magic bubbled and crested, and Fai started, frozen in place.

The figure of a woman stepped out from the tree line, her features incomprehensible from his distance. A pale, flowing dress covered her body, and her auburn hair was draped over her shoulder in a long, complex plait. She had a sword strapped to her side and a bow slung across her back, but no sheath or quiver of arrows to speak of. Above her circled three shining birds – not the _cwm annwn_ at all. Transfixed, Fai wateched her as she drifted around the clearing, never straying far from the tree line, the three birds following overhead. The trees themselves seemed to bend towards her, as responsive to her as Fai himself was, as she passed. She disappeared again, ducking into the forest once more.

Fai, utterly enraptured by the irresistible pull of power – _her_ power – followed.

The woman wove through the dense thicket like it was her ballroom, her dress swishing around her figure with each turn. The sword on her hip glinted in the light of the aurora, its blade straight and sharp-edged on each side. As fast or as slow as Fai walked, she remained perfectly out of reach. She caught Fai’s eye, and smiled. She flickered for a moment – not just out of sight, but out of _existence_ – and the air was squeezed from Fai’s lungs like he had been sucker punched. As soon as she was gone she appeared once more, and he could breathe again.

“Who are you,” Fai called, once he had found his voice, “ _wait!_ ”

The sky went black.

The ground jumped out from beneath his feet.

He stumbled and fell to his knees, his face and shoulder colliding with rough bark. Immense pressure constricted him, caused him to gasp and flounder and drown in the open air, unable to draw breath. He clawed at his throat, at the tree stump he had fallen into, at the earth beneath his body-

He blacked out.

-

Wet.

Warm.

A puff of hot air.

Fai groaned, scrunching up his eyes. His head throbbed painfully. His cheek stung, and his face felt cold and wet on one side and warm and wet on the other. Something puffed in his ear and he turned his head, prying his eyes apart.

He was getting rather tired of waking up in the snow, truth be told, but the _giant white horse_ stood directly over him and breathing in his face certainly did break up the monotony. He swallowed hard, hardly daring to breathe, paralysed by the dual instincts to _run_ and alternatively to _not move again, ever_.

The horse scuffed a hoof in the snow, terrifyingly close to where Fai’s arm was half-curled beneath him, and backed up a little bit. It was a magnificent thing, muscular and tall. Its loose mane and the sleek tail that swished behind it appeared pearlescent in the light. It shook its head, and as its mane flew, revealed jet black shapes sat along its back; ravens, all three of them watching him unblinkingly.

Glacially slow, pushing himself up on shaking arms, Fai gathered his legs beneath him. The horse watched him idly, the ravens on its back shifting and rustling their wings. Shrinking against the trunk of the tree behind him, he carefully stood, the bark scratching loudly against his clothes as he rose. With nothing to hold it up, the satchel at Fai’s side fell to the ground with a thud and, reflexively, he dove down to pick it back up. The horse snorted at his sudden movement and stepped back further, stamping its front hooves.

The satchel’s strap had split as if cut, and the outer canvas was soaked with melted snow, but luckily the book inside remained undamaged. Fai tied the broken strap together in a stiff knot, and slung it back across his shoulders. Something in the movement caught his cheek and he winced, touching a hand to it. The skin felt rough and jagged under his fingers – his bare fingers. His glove had come off, too. He looked around to find it, but there stood nothing but dense forest in every direction. His footprints had disappeared, along with the strange woman and her birds. The sun hung overhead in the sky, casting short shadows.

He had been unconscious for hours.

To make matters worse, all he felt where his magic ought to have been was once more nothing but a cloying numbness. He had been knocked right back to square one; at the mercy of the elements, and no idea where to go to find his companions. At least he had a book that he couldn’t read.

He folded his arms tightly across his chest, although he wasn’t sure if the chill he felt was entirely due to the weather.

“This is less than ideal,” he murmured under his breath, the noise loud against the silence, his voice cracked and croaky. “I don’t suppose you know the way back, do you?” he asked the horse, because that was the most logical thing to do, at that moment. Perhaps he had hit his head harder than he thought.

The horse snorted and, using its snout, pushed Fai towards the left. Fai stumbled over his own feet, barely managing to keep his balance against the sharp throb in his head, and it pushed him again.

“What are you-“ Fai yelped. The horse shoved him until he walked on his own, just ahead of it, its head squarely between his shoulder blades. “Oh. Okay.” The horse was actually showing him the way. Why not.

The ravens swooped in the air above Fai and the horse. They flew ahead, dipping in and out of the trees, their black forms a stark contrast to the white snow and silver branches. They made noises that sounded like cackling, but instead of being unnerved, Fai found that the sound was more welcome than the oppressive silence he had been buried in before.

He wasn’t sure how long they walked for, following the ravens until the horse corrected him either with a shove or a yank of his satchel. Time was difficult to track in the depths of the forest, where the shadows crossed and overlapped one another, and the only true measure he had was his own tiredness and hunger; both insistent, both growing.

The forest thinned out around him and he squinted, stepping out into the sunlight. Before him lay the lake, its icy surface sparkling. A rowboat sat half-sunk in the frozen water, tied to a partially collapsed jetty, and some squat little cottages were huddled together some metres away from the shoreline. It was the same lake they had found the day before – the fishing huts scattered across it were a clear giveaway – but he had emerged on the wrong side of it. Across the lake was the silhouette of the building they had chosen to stay in, pale in the distant mist, a funnel of grey smoke rising from one of its chimneys. In his chest Fai’s heart leapt, clearing away the heavy weight of fatigue from his body.

“I can make my way from here,” he said aloud, turning back. The horse and its ravens were nowhere to be seen. He peeked this way and that to try and spot the odd group in amongst the trees, but all that remained were hoofprints in the snow.

“Well, that was certainly odd,” he remarked. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth, called out a quick “thank you!” to the horse, wherever it was, and started across the lake. The ice was dry, even in the sun, and yet he found himself slipping and losing his balance. His ‘skill’ at traversing frozen areas turned out to not be of much use when he was exhausted, his head splitting. He passed by the fishing hut he and Kurogane had taken a little reprieve in the day before and felt like he was forgetting something, his second (third?) wind fizzling out as he lost his battle with fatigue.

The door to the government building opened straight away, the barricade not in place, and he practically fell inside, sagging against the frame.

“Fai◆△!” Syaoran exclaimed. “だい◯■か？”

“I’m okay, I’m fine,” Fai waved a hand. He just about managed to shut the door behind himself before he stumbled again, the walls swimming around him. He wasn’t sure if it was sleep or unconsciousness that he was slipping into, but either way, he succumbed to it, and let the peaceful darkness wash over him.

In his dreams, he was squeezed tight, wrapped in arms that were flesh and metal. The feeling was not claustrophobic but was comforting, and he nestled deeper into the embrace. The smell of woodsmoke filled his senses, and a rumble reverberated through his body in voices that he didn’t understand. His cheek stung, and his face felt warm and wet on one side and cold and wet on the other.

Later, when he awoke, he had been moved to a bed. The covers were tucked around him, the smell of dust tickling his nose. Night had fallen again, judging by the dancing shadows the lit stove cast against the walls – he had slept a whole day away, in one sense or another. The mattress sagged and dipped with a familiar weight, and a plate appeared in his line of sight.

“Eat,” Kurogane’s gruff voice commanded. There was a frostiness to it that quelled the pleased, warm feeling Fai usually got when within proximity to his lover. Fai pushed himself up to sit, the headboard rattling against the wall with the movement. Kurogane dropped the plate into Fai’s lap and faced away once more, his arms folded.

“What is it?” Fai asked softly. It was meat, that was clear; Fai would have been able to tell right away if it had been fish. Kurogane didn’t answer right away, even when Fai repeated himself in Japanese.

“Rabbit,” Kurogane said shortly in perfect Ceresian. He stood, repeated his command for Fai to eat and stalked away, enveloped quickly in the darkness.

Fai exhaled hard through his nose, and for once in his life, did as he was told. Two voices, each speaking a different language to the other, drifted up from the lower level of the building. Fai chewed his dinner, and contemplated joining them. Exhaustion held him back, however – along with worry. He wasn’t sure if what had happened to him that day had just been an illusion or hallucination, or if he really had followed the spectre of a woman deep into the forest before being led out again by an oddly intelligent horse. The one thing he was certain of was that he had definitely hit his head; it throbbed painfully every now and then, and a spot under his hairline felt tender and bruised to the touch. He raised his fingers to his cheek, as he remembered doing hours before, and felt the pad of gauze that had been taped there.

Parts of his day had been real, at the very least.

After some time had passed, stomping footsteps roused Fai from another doze. He met Kurogane’s thunderous scowl from under his eyelashes, and tried to remember the last time the ninja had looked so angry with him. In the light of the fire, the shadows under Kurogane’s eyes were as deep as chasms. Kurogane gestured sharply for Fai’s empty plate, which Fai passed him with a murmured “「thank you,」” and closed his eyes once more.

The mattress dipped, and Fai’s eyes flew open in surprise. Kurogane kissed him fiercely, his hand curling under Fai’s chin and his growing stubble scratchy against Fai’s face. His rough fingers slipped backwards and dug into the base of Fai’s skull, his grip not so tight as to hurt but tight enough that Fai could feel the tremors that quaked through his muscles.

Kurogane broke away with a ragged breath, and pressed his forehead to Fai’s so hard that he might as well have been trying to physically pass his thoughts directly into Fai’s mind. Fai wondered briefly where the dinner plate had gone.

They remained that way for several long moments. Every so often he felt a puff of air on his cheeks as Kurogane exhaled. Slowly but surely, the tiredness started to creep in at the edges of his thoughts again. As Fai began to sink away, Kurogane held him fast.

“「Do NOT go to sleep.」” Kurogane growled. Right. He had hit his head, of course. Hadn’t he just been asleep, though? He was too tired to ask.

“I’m okay,” he replied, the Ceresian slurring off of his tongue.

“You’re an idiot.”

Fai’s breath huffed out of him in a short laugh. “I guess I deserve that.”

Kurogane continued to hold him, and didn’t relax even as the shaking in his arm grew more pronounced. It took Fai a while to realise the trembling wasn’t coming from exertion, and longer again that it wasn’t from _anger,_ either. He smoothed his hands up Kurogane’s arms and across his shoulders, kissed the tip of Kurogane’s nose. Kurogane tensed, and ducked his face into Fai’s neck. Fai kissed his temple, his hairline. He smelled of sweat. Fai suspected that he hadn’t rested at all since Fai had left the night before, and that he probably wouldn’t get any sleep unless pushed. Slowly, Fai sank back against the musty pillows, tugging Kurogane along with him by the hands.

“You no sleep.” Kurogane hissed.

“I’ll try to stay awake,” Fai replied, a teasing grin curling his lips, “but I can’t promise anything, Kuro-doggy. You might have to lie next to me and bark every time I close my eyes.”

Motionless, Kurogane watched him, eyes narrowed and weary. There was no way he had understood even half of what Fai had just said, yet the tone itself seemed to translate just fine. Regardless, he needed further encouragement.

Fai sat up again, smoothing his hands up Kurogane’s thick forearms, caressing the line of Kurogane’s jaw in his palm. It was completely analogous to the desperate, clinging kiss Kurogane had initiated minutes before, but still, Kurogane sank into it, turning his head and pressing his lips to the pulse point in Fai’s wrist. His eyelids had fallen closed, his dark eyelashes lay spread out across his cheeks, his eyebrows divided by a deep furrow. His head became heavier as the seconds stretched on, and he was much more pliant when Fai attempted to pull him down into the bed the next time. He nestled into Fai’s left side, his chin on Fai’s shoulder and his hand stroking across Fai’s tummy.

Fai smoothed out the lines in Kurogane’s forehead with the pad of his thumb and brushed his fingertips through jet black hair. Kurogane did not often allow him to do this – even in sleep, he usually arranged himself so that he could remain partially alert and ready to spring into action. He only really allowed himself to sleep properly and deeply when they were all safe and otherwise protected, and Fai speculated as to why this situation was so different. He realised, as he lightly traced Kurogane’s features with a fingertip and listened to his breathing become even, that perhaps it wasn’t just sleep that Kurogane needed. Perhaps he needed the comfort, as well.

A rhythmic step- _thunk_ sound approached up the stairs, and Fai held a finger to his lips before Syaoran came into sight. Syaoran paused upon seeing the gesture, and upon seeing the two curled together in the bed, until Fai waved him over. Syaoran left his crutch by the stairs and carefully limped his way over to them. His brown eyes kept flitting over to where Kurogane slept.

“He just needed a little rest,” Fai explained in hushed tones. Syaoran sat himself on Fai’s other side, a completely agonised expression on his face. Fai reached for him and squeezed his hand.

“I’m alright,” he promised, “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

“Fai◆△ご□んな◆◯.” Syaoran said. He continued speaking in a rush, his voice steadily climbing in volume. Fai shushed him softly, conscious of Kurogane, and Syaoran broke off mid-sentence, looking down at the floor. For someone who could read and speak many languages, Syaoran seemed to be struggling the most with the lack of ability to communicate. Apart from the previous night, with the aurora, he had been much more withdrawn and reluctant to talk during their time in this world. Perhaps Kurogane wasn’t the only one in need of comfort.

Fai lifted back the sheets on his spare side, gesturing for Syaoran to get in. Syaoran raised an eyebrow and smiled somewhat wryly, giving Fai a questioning look. Fai gestured again, insistently, but Syaoran shook his head. Fai opened his mouth-

“「Get in the bed, kid」,” Kurogane grumbled sleepily, the words muffled against Fai’s shoulder and cutting off whatever Fai was going to say. His eyes had opened a sliver, reflecting the light from the fire. Syaoran finally did as he was told, burrowing into Fai’s other side. Fai slithered his arms around the two of them and squeezed, kissing both of their foreheads in turn. Kurogane huffed into Fai’s shoulder, his eyes closed once more, while across from him Syaoran smiled wider and easier than Fai had seen in days, perhaps weeks.

The three of them were not out at all out of the woods; they had food now, at least, but they still had no idea what was waiting around the corner. Fai’s magic only worked during the aurora, it seemed, and the aurora itself didn’t shine every night – in fact, there was no way to know whether or not the aurora _would_ occur again, and even then it didn’t make finding Mokona easy. Fai hadn’t even told them yet about the woman he had seen, and he hadn’t even figured out for himself why he had been so compelled to carelessly follow her through the woods as he had. The more he thought about it, the more he realised he _couldn’t_ tell them about the woman – how could he face Kurogane afterwards, having been so reckless? It was highly likely that he had fallen and hit his head some other way, and that waking up next to the white horse had been a dream. Kurogane had been wrapped in his cloak when he delivered Fai’s dinner; he had probably gone to find Fai and brought him back himself.

Kurogane’s hand twitched against his belly. Fai exhaled a long, measured breath. There was nothing more he could do for now; he wasn’t going to get answers by agonising over it alone. He pushed the thoughts away, choosing instead to focus on the sound of the fire in the hearth, the wind whistling outside, and his sleeping family snuggled into his chest.


	6. Annoyed by Your Lover

“К@к н@сч£& %т#>#, Kuronya?” Fai trilled, speaking so fast Kurogane couldn’t discern any of the words. Against his better judgement, he turned to look.

The two of them (three, if you included Syaoran waiting outside) were picking through the houses on the opposite side of the lake. They had decided, in the stunted way they could without a common language, that they would be better off searching for Mokona by actually covering some ground each day, and they couldn’t do that by keeping that one building as a base. They had brought with them the fishing line and the rabbit snare, which he had found at the hunter’s cabin when he went looking for the idiot wizard the night before, but just having those tools to hand didn’t guarantee they would be successful in catching any dinner with them.

A lot of the houses had tins of food in them still, as well as other useful supplies, and with the people evacuated for goodness knows how long, the supplies probably wouldn’t be missed. It felt sort of wrong to steal from people that weren’t even there, but ultimately, Kurogane reasoned that they needed these things more.

The mage was utterly unrepentant for going missing and making them worry themselves half to death; in fact, he was so oppositional that, instead of moderating himself to be more tolerable as an apology, he chose to double down on his stupid behaviour. He seemed to be on a personal mission to piss Kurogane off as much as possible, and while the monstrosity Fai held up in front of him wasn’t quite as weird as some of the other things he had shoved in Kurogane’s face that morning (some notable examples included bells mounted on a stick, a hat shaped like a huge yellow flower, and a horse’s skull – also mounted on a stick), it was clearly up there on the list of _Why the Fuck Are You Bothering Me with This Shit._

This time, Fai held in his hands a huge coat of some kind, every inch of it covered in strips and tassels of fabric in slightly varying shades of green. Kurogane stared at it, wondering how leafy camouflage would even help in a world suffocated in snow and ice. The tassels rippled, flying out and expelling clouds of dust as Fai shook it.

“Be serious,” Kurogane growled, waving a hand in front of his face to disperse the dust from the air. Fai continued to blather on, oblivious to Kurogane’s ire. Too annoyed to even bother attempting conversation with the idiot, and with nothing left in the house to search, Kurogane stalked outside.

Syaoran sat a few metres from the front door on a sled they had ‘borrowed’ from the first group of houses, the book that Fai had gone out (and subsequently gone missing) for laying open across his lap. He ate from a bag of peanuts while he read, and while the other kid probably would have had a conniption at the idea of spilling salt and peanut crumbs in a book, this one didn’t seem to mind too much.

The sled itself was unlike any other sled that Kurogane had ever seen; yes, it had bladed feet on either side and a flat plank for sitting on, but it also had what looked like a tall back support at its rear which could be used to push it along, and a step wide enough for a person to stand on behind that. Instead of being made from wood, the whole thing was made from a very lightweight metal, and despite Kurogane’s scepticism, it held up well with all the weight they piled on to it. It proved to be very useful in getting their supplies around, and it meant the kid could come with them without aggravating his injury – which was ideal, as it meant Kurogane wasn’t alone in baring the brunt of Fai being Fai.

The only true issue with the sled wasn’t an issue with the sled at all, he reflected sourly. He rolled his shoulders, the action controlled and carefully paced, gritting his teeth against the expected twinge. Cold places were all the same, lately; it only took a few hours for the temperature to start affecting his shoulder and causing him pain. The doctors on Piffle claimed that his current prosthetic was a perfect fit, and that it worked fine in all but the most extreme climates. The problem, he learned, wasn’t due to his man-made arm, but due to what was left of his flesh-and-bone one. Cold weather caused the muscles to contract and shrink, which despite all of Piffle’s advanced technology, was something the prosthetic couldn’t do, and as perfect of a fit that it was, it would inevitably become misaligned in cold weather. All Kurogane could do for the pain was keep the shoulder warm, and failing that, his only other option was to grin and bear it.

Or scowl and bear it, as was his preference.

Fai flounced out of the house with a small green box. He tutted once he got a look inside the sack they used to carry their food, and spent time faffing around with its contents before adding his find to it. Kurogane didn’t see the point; the things in the sack were going to get jostled around anyway, why bother stacking them neatly? It was something that Fai was being particularly anal about for some reason, when he wasn’t staring off between the trees, and Kurogane wasn’t entirely sure which mood he found more bothersome. Fai’s commitment to being the world’s biggest pain in the ass was almost impressive; Kurogane had never before been so incensed solely by somebody re-organising a food sack.

Kurogane took hold of the sled, hiding his discomfort with impatience.

“Hurry up,” he snapped, “you can fuck around with it all you want when we’re at the next house.”

In biting at him, Kurogane had made the number one mistake of being annoyed with Fai; letting Fai know that he was annoyed with Fai. He had forgotten, just for a moment, that if anyone was able to perform any given menial task with an air of casual and cheerful indifference in the face of sheer, unadulterated rage, that person was Fai D. Flourite.

Years of background exposure usually helped him tolerate such childish behaviour, but paired with the constantly worsening ache in his shoulder, the two factors split his focus and rusted away his iron-clad tolerance. He satisfied the urge for violence by forcefully shunting the sled along before Fai was finished, bumping him out of the way in the process.

“That hurt, Kurochka.” Fai complained, rubbing his arm.

“Good,” Kurogane replied shortly. The man had somehow sustained a mild concussion and gotten himself half-covered in his own blood the day before; he would survive a minor shove.

The pain in Kurogane’s shoulder flared and blazed under the force of pushing the sled along. The thick carpet of snow in every direction lay in dunes and dips, forming a winding path down what looked like it may have once been a concrete road. Defunct powerlines bordered them to the one side, the lake on the other disappearing periodically behind rocky outcrops and clusters of trees. Pods of cottages marked the trail every few hundred yards, each of them abandoned and falling into disrepair. They had looted – for lack of a better word – six such cottages already that morning, and found supplies in fits and starts.

Something underfoot jostled the sled, dislodging Fai’s careful work inside the food sack. Fai made a noise beside him and darted for the sack. Kurogane made to speed up, causing Fai to collide with him instead. His aching arm jostled, Kurogane released the sled with a shout. Fai grabbed it, and instead of slowing down as Kurogane expected, started off at a run.

“What are you-!”

Fai propelled the thing forward at such a speed that Syaoran had to snap the book in his lap shut and cling to one of the sides. Fai guided them – the sled, Syaoran, himself and all – off of the top of one of the rises. They disappeared from sight, Syaoran yelling and Fai cheering. Kurogane crested the rise to see the pair of them in a heap at the bottom, the contents of the sled spilled across the snow. Fai lay on his back, panting and laughing, and Syaoran sat upright, somewhat dazed, his one hand still on the sled and the other clutching the book to his stomach in a white-knuckled grip.

“Are you fucking serious?” Kurogane groused under his breath as he made his way down towards them, gathering the scattered supplies where he went. His shoulder burned even more so from Fai’s shove, and while he couldn’t complain about it without drawing attention to himself, it very much did not help his overall mood. He glanced up just as Fai pelted a snowball directly at Syaoran, who had still barely recovered, which connected squarely with his chest and exploded into streaks of snow. Syaoran yelped and, not to be outdone, retaliated. The two of them were soon scrambling around and launching icy missiles at one another while Kurogane continued recovering the food.

A snowball hit him right in the side of the head, and the packets in his arms fell to the floor in a cascade. He glared his sharpest daggers at Fai who, while he looked sheepish, did not look particularly responsible. Kurogane spun his head to look at Syaoran – _there’s_ the guilt. Kurogane let his biggest, most predatory piss-your-pants-in-fear smirk spread across his face. Syaoran gulped and scrambled back as Kurogane advanced, his large shadow falling across the kid’s figure. Syaoran raised his hands and said something, the phrase cut off with another yelp as Kurogane hauled the boy up and over his good shoulder.

“▲って！” Syaoran gasped around his laughter. Fai cheered them on from behind, and after just a few short steps, Kurogane dropped Syaoran into a deep snow drift. Syaoran fell right through the powdery pile and came up spluttering while Kurogane crossed his arms in triumph.

As entertaining as the little reprieve from mushing had been, the downside became rapidly apparent when the kid started shivering from snowmelt, his teeth clacking together noisily. The mage appeared at Kurogane’s side with the sled, once again refilled with their supplies.

The next house on the path was just a single structure stood above them, overlooking the road and the lake beyond. It had a wraparound porch and a stone chimney protruded from the roof, and as they drew nearer Kurogane saw a huge tank of something stood beside it. A symbol was on the side of the tank of a flame within a diamond – perhaps it was fuel?

It took them a few minutes to figure out how to ascend the rise. The path leading up to the house was hidden in the snow and the trees, and once they found it, Syaoran dismounted the sled so that it could be dragged up easier. Kurogane supported the kid’s bad side with his good side, the two of them pushing the sled from behind while Fai pulled it from the front. By the time they reached the door (unlocked, again – _what kind of people lived here??_ ) Syaoran was no longer shivering but looked sort of flushed and green at the same time, and Kurogane wasn’t faring much better, although he hoped his face betrayed him less.

Once inside, Fai bustled around them, pulling off their wet clothes and hanging them to dry from whatever surface was available. The house felt chilly but not cold and, from the looks of it, was in a decent state of repair compared to the other houses they had come across. Downstairs was split into three rooms; a cramped den and bathroom adjoining a relatively spacious kitchen/dining area. The upstairs consisted of three bedrooms and another, marginally larger, bathroom. The beds were all made up with matching crisp white sheets. The carpets were old but clean, as was the furniture, and the wardrobes and dressers were all bare and empty save for some soft white dressing gowns. The bathrooms both contained the same brands of liquid soaps and shampoos, and while there were toothbrushes beside the sink, they were all individually wrapped in clear plastic packets. Was this a hotel of some kind? If it was, it hadn’t been occupied in some time, if the dust was any indication.

In the kitchen, Fai and Syaoran both crowded one of the cupboards. Syaoran perched on his knees on the countertop, fiddling around with something in the recess of the cabinet. Fai stood beside him providing what he undoubtedly thought was helpful commentary but in reality was probably just serving to block what little light there was coming in through the windows. Whatever Syaoran was looking for made a loud _snap_ , like the switch had been left for so long it was stuck in place, and almost immediately, the pipes inside the walls began to groan and creak.

“Water, hot,” Fai said to Kurogane, nodding down at something behind him. Kurogane turned his head – behind him on the countertop was an open folder of laminated paper, beside which was kitchen sink. He turned the tap and stuck his fingers into the stream of water, his eyebrows raising in surprise as the water gradually heated up.

“It’s warm,” he said to Fai, who grinned sunnily and patted Syaoran on the back. Syaoran smiled in return and hopped back down, carefully avoiding jostling his ankle.

The metal radiators in each room warmed the house up quickly. Kurogane sat heavily on one of the squishy sofas in the living room, his aching shoulder as close to the source of heat as possible and a tumbler of clear spirit pilfered from one of the other houses cradled in his other hand. He leaned his head back and exhaled in a measured breath, letting go of the tension he had been carrying with him. He was still irritated with Fai, not necessarily because the man had been provoking him but purely because he still had not grown anything resembling a normal sense of self-preservation, no matter how much Kurogane had tried to impress one upon him. He could feel the conversation looming; a conversation neither of them wanted to have but one that needed to happen, and he hated the aurora even more in that moment. He had learned patience in spades since first being sent away by Tomoyo, especially when it came to learning to pick his battles with Fai, but the aurora took away any control he had over that choice. He was completely at mercy for its next occurrence – if it happened – because this wasn’t something he wanted to talk to Fai about while the mage could claim to not understand. Fai had been better about being honest - he had learned things on their journey too, of course – but there was something cagey in the way he had been looking into the trees all day. It was as if he was looking _for_ something, though what he could be looking for, Kurogane had no clue. They still had yet to discuss exactly what had happened to Fai to make him go missing and come back injured, nor had the three of them discussed any further plan of action besides ‘move around a lot and hope to find the white thing’.

Kurogane rubbed his forehead with sore fingers, took a draught from his glass. He grit his teeth against the foreign burn of the liquor, briefly distracted from the throbbing in his shoulder. The cold had not only caused the pain but appeared to have also been numbing it, and he couldn’t do much except ride out the muscle cramps as they came. The alcohol took the edge off, but he probably needed a long soak in the bath, if there was enough hot water for it.

Fai was banging around in the kitchen again when Kurogane ventured in to refill his glass. The mage’s hair lay loose and damp against his neck, the pale expanse of skin disappearing beneath a white bath robe. He smelled fresh and clean even from the distance Kurogane stood, and part of him – the part that wasn’t still angry – moved to reach for him, to bury his nose into the crown of Fai’s hair and breathe in deep lungfuls. In reality, Kurogane refilled his glass with stiff movements, and left the kitchen with barely a word.

As suspected, the baths were probably only big enough for a child to lie in, and were a cruel imitation of comfort for someone of Kurogane’s stature. With some effort, he managed to soak his shoulder, though while the hot water did help with the ache, his awkward posture only served to create aches in other places. He peeled away the layer where artificial skin met natural, and grimaced at the angry redness where the prosthetic was attached to his body. It hadn’t reopened the wound for once, which was a small blessing; while Fai was no longer a vampire, he still retained an uncanny sense for when Kurogane’s blood was being spilled, and Kurogane didn’t want the fuss. The mage was worried enough about the kid’s ankle and the missing manjuu bun to be avoiding things again, and Kurogane didn’t wish to add to that.

He scratched the dark stubble that coated his jaw and throat and contemplated shaving, but the only razor he found was a straight edged blade. He had only ever shaved while not-totally-sober once before in his life, and had come out the other side looking like he had lost a heated argument with a porcupine. He eyed the empty glass on the side of the sink, and decided that shaving could wait.

They didn’t have any changes of clothes, and so once the skin on his shoulder was carefully replaced, Kurogane covered himself up in one of the dressing gowns, as Fai had done. It wasn’t entirely unlike a yukata; it was soft on his skin, the brushed cotton cooling his inflamed shoulder joint, and he took a small amount of comfort in the small mercy.

The smell of cooking food filled the hallway outside the bathroom. Syaoran and Fai sat at the dining table playing a card game while several pots bubbled away merrily on the hob, a number of open cans and packets discarded beside them. Kurogane’s stomach growled and he filled his glass for a third time.

“Kuro-pon, п@&%@й с #$£и,” Fai chirped, waving him over. They were playing a game they had learned on their most recent visit to Piffle, and as Fai started dealing Kurogane in, he realised they were using the leftover peanuts as betting tokens. The three of them passed the time with several rounds of cards while dinner cooked, working their way through both the peanuts and the booze. Syaoran had, thankfully, limited himself to a single glass – Kurogane didn’t much fancy chasing the kid down to get him to go to bed that night, even though he doubted he would get far on that ankle. The liquor had spread a pleasant tinge of flushed skin down Fai’s throat and clavicle that had already lost Kurogane a few hands by the time dinner was served.

The bowls in Fai’s hands clattered down to the table, a few fat droplets of red sauce splashing onto the wood. Wavering, Fai gripped the edge of the tabletop, and the electric lights stuttered on overhead.

“I’m fine,” Fai said immediately, sounding like he was anything but _fine_ , “it’s the, uh,”

“The aurora,” Syaoran supplied. He was staring out of the kitchen window, at the green-tinted sky.

“Can you hear it again?” asked Kurogane, watching the two of them carefully. Fai sat in his seat and mopped the spilled drops of soup with a napkin clenched inside his shaking fist, while Syaoran seemed to be having trouble tearing his attention away from the outside sky.

“Yes, it…” Syaoran trailed off. He shook his head. “Sorry, I … can’t remember what I was going to say.”

Across the room, a CD player perched atop the fridge coughed to life. Automatically, Kurogane rose to switch it off, but Syaoran held a hand up to stop him. The music sounded creepy and distant and made the hairs on his neck stand on end, and it skipped every time the lights blinked, but it seemed to help the kid tune out whatever sound the aurora made.

“Let’s eat our dinner,” Fai said after a pause, much steadier than he had been a moment ago, “and we’ll play more blackjack afterwards. I think I was getting into a winning streak!”

“Desperate to lose all of your peanuts, mage?”

Fai smirked wickedly at him, but his eyes darted back over to the kid, and whatever he was going to say died before it reached his lips. Instead, he refilled both his and Kurogane’s empty glasses with the last drops of the bottle and teased him about something inconsequential. Bickering, even as a show to distract the kid, was a good a way as any to work out some of the lingering irritation he felt towards Fai, and by the time they finished eating he was in a markedly better mood than he had been all day. He still needed to actually _talk_ to Fai, though, and that hung over his head a little, but with the pleasant buzz of liquor and hot food in his system, he found it hard to worry about. Syaoran, on the other hand, grew increasingly more distracted through dinner and moreso through their resumed game of cards.

“Syaoran-kun?” Fai prompted, “are you alright? It’s your turn to deal.”

The kid blinked and looked down at his hands. He had been absently shuffling the deck for the past few minutes, and while it was impressive to watch him execute perfect flourishes without even paying attention, the blank look in his eyes reminded Kurogane almost too much of the way the other kid had behaved in the library and the reservoir in Tokyo.

“Sorry,” Syaoran muttered again.

“We can turn the music up more if that helps?” Fai offered. Syaoran shook his head and resumed shuffling, immediately fumbling the cards and sending them spilling to the floor. He stared at them as if he couldn’t entirely comprehend what had happened.

“What’s it sound like?” Kurogane asked instead. If the aurora was affecting the kid this badly, he reasoned, it didn’t seem like something they should ignore. Two pairs of eyes fell onto him, one amber and worried, one blue and sharp. Fai was the first to look away, glancing back at Syaoran, who shifted in his seat, the cards forgotten.

“It sounds like a voice, like a woman’s voice, but,” he frowned in concentration, turning his head to the side, “I can’t understand what she’s saying.”

Kurogane tried to exchange a glance with Fai and found that the wizard was looking out of the window again. Kurogane watched him closely, but by the time Fai turned back, he had arranged his face to not betray anything.

“Does it say anything in that book?” Kurogane continued. Syaoran’s frown deepened.

“I don’t…” he trailed off.

“Why don’t you read it to us?” suggested Fai with a kind smile. “Three heads are better than one, after all.”

Fai fetched the book and Kurogane steered Syaoran into the next room, vetoing the idea of spending any more time sat in the rickety wooden chairs when there was a suite of perfectly comfy sofas available. They sat with Syaoran in the middle, Fai with his legs tucked up on the cushions beneath him and leaning over to see the book for himself. Kurogane arranged his bad arm carefully across the back of the sofa, balancing what was left of his drink on his knee. Syaoran flipped through the book with purpose and showed them an artist’s impression of the large white wolves they had seen.

“These are the _cwm annwn_ ,” he said, “there’s not anything written about them that I forgot to tell you. No way to fight them, either,” he added before Kurogane could ask again. He flipped to another page, this one with a high-resolution photograph of the aurora in all its multicoloured splendor.

“The aurora is supposed to be a time when the ‘veil between our world and the magical world is weak’,” Syaoran read aloud, “but I’m not sure if they mean it literally or figuratively. Would it mean that the _cwm annwn_ only exist during the aurora too, like magic?”

“The magic doesn’t _not exist_ outside the aurora, or I’d be dead,” Fai interjected lightly, “it’s more likely that they cross over from wherever they are naturally.”

“Is that where the pork bun will be?” Kurogane speculated. The other two fell into a pensive silence. If it was true, and Mokona was across the ‘veil’, how would they retrieve them? Should they let themselves get caught by the _cwm annwn_ in order to find them and get out of this world?

“There’s nothing about hearing a woman’s voice during the aurora,” Syaoran said after a handful of tense moments passed, flicking forward some more pages, “the closest entry is about someone named Queen Rhiannon.”

The page he showed them displayed another artist’s rendering, though this one appeared older and more stylised than the picture of the wolves. A woman with long flowing hair stood against a backdrop of trees, a swaddled baby in her one arm which she ignored in favour of three crows perched on the other. Fai straightened up to get a better look, his lips thinned. He prompted Syaoran to read the entry; Queen Rhiannon was someone who had actually existed hundreds of years in the country’s past, though there were various branches in her story, many of which contradicted the other. The consensus was that she had given birth to a son who had been stolen away, and whom she later found with the aid of her ravens. At night, it was said that sometimes it was possible to hear the sound of her crying on the winter winds.

“Is that what you can hear?” Kurogane said softly, “crying?”

“No,” Syaoran shook his head. “It’s definitely _words_ , but I can’t understand them at all. Even though the three of us can understand each other again. It’s almost… it’s almost as if she’s too far away for me to hear her clearly.”

“What about that horse?” Fai asked. He pointed to a picture on the page opposite, of a white mare and a white foal.

“It just says that she’s sometimes depicted as a horse,” Syaoran said with a shrug, “I think that’s a common theme for a lot of these sorts of myths. A legend from the country that neighbours this is about a man who slays a dragon, but the dragon symbolises the people of this country, and isn’t a dragon at all.”

“Why a horse?” Kurogane asked when Fai fell silent and contemplative. “Does it have anything to do with that weird skull on a stick?”

“Oh, no, that’s another thing entirely-“ Syaoran replied. He thumbed through the remaining pages in the book, “it’s not a _myth_ , per say, but that horse’s skull totem you found earlier is in here too. Here – the _Mari Lwyd_.”

The picture in the book showed a horse’s skull on a stick, alright, except the one in the photograph also had a veil and was covered in bells and tassels – the one Fai had tried to spook Kurogane with earlier was plain, and the skull was smaller (or the stick was bigger; it was hard to gauge the scale from the photograph alone). Syaoran started to read the entry for the _Mari Lwyd_ and Kurogane eyed the mage over the top of his head – Fai appeared interested in what the kid was saying, and yet he seemed… off, his questions coming entirely out of left field. He was hiding something, Kurogane realised with a bitter, frustrated twist in his gut. He sat back against the arm of the sofa and continued to stare Fai down, oblivious though the mage was.

“So our next move should be to find the horse-woman,” Kurogane said, cutting off whatever the kid was saying. Again, he was fixed with two pairs of eyes, except this time both were worried and anxious. Fai was the one to voice his disagreement.

“It might be a little late for that, Kuro-tan-“

“The kid can hear the voice _now_ , so I say we follow it-“

“-I really don’t think that’s a good idea-“

“Why not?” Kurogane demanded, “you and the kid both have your magic, we’ve eaten, we’ve rested, and we _have a lead_.”

Fai closed his mouth, his teeth clacking together audibly. The look he shot Kurogane could have suffocated a roaring fire, but he was caught. He didn’t have a good answer. Unfortunately, even caught out as they were, neither he nor the kid would budge, and so they stayed in the house for the night.

Kurogane didn’t get the opportunity to talk to Fai until later, cornering him in the kitchen after Syaoran had excused himself to shower.

“It really is lovely to look at, isn’t it?” Fai commented, when he finally noticed that he was no longer alone. He was stood at the sink, and would have been washing dishes had he not been absently staring out of the window. Kurogane folded his arms and leant against the counter, fixing Fai with his stare. Fai resumed washing the dishes as if he had never become distracted, placing a newly clean bowl on the draining rack, soap suds sluicing off of the glaze in streams and rivulets.

“What happened yesterday?”

Fai’s smooth movements stuttered. “What do you mean, Kuro-min?” he laughed, “I went and got the book for Syaoran-kun yesterday.”

Kurogane _really_ didn’t have the patience for this, but if the mage was going to be deliberately obtuse, then he had no choice but to spell it out. “You went missing for half a day,” he growled, “you came back concussed and bloody.”

“So, I got a little lost on the way back.” Fai said breezily, pausing to push his sleeves further up and over his elbows. “Not surprising considering I hit my head, after all.”

“Can you knock it off?” Kurogane snapped, “you’ve been acting weird all day, and it’s not because you hit your head.”

Fai faltered. He wouldn’t meet Kurogane’s eyes. “I… I’m not sure what happened.”

“What do you _think_ happened?” he pressed.

For several moments, Fai didn’t say anything. He chewed the inside of his cheek and stared out of the window. The suds in the sink popped, and the electricity from the aurora fizzed in the walls. Finally, he shrugged, and shook his head lightly.

“I really couldn’t tell you, Kuro-sama.”

Kurogane gaped at him.

“Bull. _Shit._ ” He hissed finally, when he had processed the sheer unapologetic tone to Fai’s response. “You’re _lying_.”

Fai straightened, squaring his shoulders almost imperceptibly. He stopped scrubbing.

“That’s a funny thing for you to say,” Fai remarked, a detached note to his voice. “When I’m not the only one who has been lying.”

“The kid hasn’t lied about anything. Neither have I.”

Fai laughed humourlessly. “Please don’t treat me like a fool,” he said slowly, his voice rising in volume. “Your arm has been hurting for days, and you haven’t-“ he stopped himself, then. “You must really think so little of me.”

“We aren’t talking about me-“

“Why _aren’t_ we talking about you?” loudly Fai rounded on him, soap suds dripping from his balled fists to the tiled floor, “you spend all this time and energy hounding me over my every thought when you won’t even tell Syaoran-kun and I – the people that _care about you_ – that you’re in pain! How is that fair?”

“I can handle my arm,” Kurogane growled. Fai gave him a look that was thoroughly disbelieving.

“I paid for it,” Fai shot back, disarmingly cold. “If anything, it’s _my_ arm.”

Stunned, Kurogane’s eyebrows hiked up his forehead. He scoffed, incredulous. “ _Really_?”

Fai lifted his chin a fraction, staring him down but not rising to the bait, continuing his tirade. “What do you think would have happened to us today if we had been attacked, and we relied on you to defend us because we didn’t know you were injured?”

It wasn’t the same thing at all. Kurogane could wield Ginryuu with a single hand – had done so in cutting down Fei Wang Reed, for crying out loud – and had seen Fai win hundreds of fights with much less at his disposal. Injured arm or not, their group would have been completely fine – and he told the mage as much.

“That isn’t the—” Fai made a noise and covered his face in his hands, breathing loudly through them. He pushed his hair out of his face, soaking it in dishwater. He looked exhausted, all of a sudden. “I can’t— it’s- it’s like-“

“It’s like what?” Kurogane pushed, “if you’re going to say something; spit it out!”

Fai exhaled in a rush, his eyes falling shut.

“It’s like there’s one rule for me, and another for you,” Fai finally answered, his voice a whisper, his fists clenched tightly together at his sides, arms shaking.

“So, you want me to just, what? Stop worrying about what happens to you?”

“No, I…” Fai trailed off, “that’s not what I’m _saying_ -“

“So what _are_ you saying?”

All at once, Fai deflated. He leant against the sink, his eyes and the corners of his lips downcast, his thin eyebrows drawn together. The coloured lights of the aurora shone in through the window and reflected on his pale skin, dancing and shifting almost hypnotically.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I have anything else _to_ say.”


	7. Layers, Scraped Away

The day following the argument in the kitchen was a lonely one.

The argument itself was over with – Fai and Kurogane were adults, after all, and both capable of treating the other with civility, or at least with something that resembled it. Kurogane was neither overly rude nor overly polite with him; he was just suffocatingly _neutral_ , though Fai supposed his own behaviour wasn’t much better. He didn’t have it in him to tease and poke as he usually would even when he felt rattled, and though he still called Kurogane by his nicknames (would _never_ drop the nicknames, not again), they came out wooden and brittle, and tasted like ash in his mouth.

They travelled mostly in silence. Syaoran, who must have overheard the shouting, tiptoed around Kurogane and Fai as if one sudden movement might cause their fragile civility to fall apart. It only added to Fai’s guilt over the whole ordeal, and the regret that he had ever opened his mouth to retaliate.

Syaoran’s ankle was finally starting to heal, but the bruise looked as painful as ever, and the older men steadfastly refused to let him walk alongside the sled (it was just about the only thing they really agreed on, at the moment). Kurogane would also, frustratingly, not let Fai help at all with pushing the sled along, though he seemed to be at least periodically resting his shoulder now that he no longer needed to conceal the difficulty he was having.

The sun crested overhead and had begun to sink behind the mountains once more before they found the next group of houses - nestled as they were in a small alcove and down a slope from the main road on which they traversed, they would have missed them had Syaoran not been paying attention. The group of houses was very similar to the previous ones, right down to the large fuel tanks outside, and once Fai broke them in (because of _course_ these would be the first doors with locks on them), the three travellers wordlessly resumed their routine; search for useful supplies, hang their clothes to dry, get the heating going. Fai cooked dinner with Syaoran’s help, and Kurogane single-handedly made a sizeable dent in their alcohol stores.

That night was entirely without an aurora, for which Fai couldn’t help but be a little disappointed; the tension between him and the ninja was weighing heavily on his mind, and without the aurora, he couldn’t apologise if he didn’t even know how to. It wasn’t like Kurogane did a lot of apologising himself, and he wouldn’t have a clue what the words meant if Fai said them in Ceresian. Fai wanted nothing more than to put the episode behind them, but how could he even know if Kurogane wanted the same thing? He had lied about his meeting with the woman (Rhiannon, he strongly suspected) out of shame and fear that it would be one act of carelessness too much for Kurogane, but what if the lying had caused the ninja to hate him anyway? He didn’t think he could handle finding out, if it meant his fears were true.

Fai slept in a cold bed that night, as he had done the night before. There wasn’t even a third bedroom in this house; he didn’t know if Kurogane was sleeping on the sofa or just drinking alone through the night. He slept fitfully, waking often between dreams of Yama and Valeria and torturous mixtures of the two, his gasping and crying muffled in musty old pillows. When the sun rose, Fai rose with it, unable and unwilling to put himself through another nightmare.

The house was dark and quiet, the door to the living room firmly closed. Fai washed his face in the adjacent bathroom, combed his hair methodically. The kitchen was similarly silent and still, the leftovers from their stilted dinner the night before left abandoned and dirty on the countertops. Fai switched the water heater back on, jumping as the pipes groaned awake, loud in the silence of the morning.

The sun had risen properly by the time Syaoran shuffled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and half asleep, his hair sticking up on one side and plastered to his head on the other. Fai took pity on him and poured him a mug of coffee, concealing a fond smile into his own. It wasn’t often that Syaoran really acted like the teenager he was, though those days seemed to somehow coincide with the times that Kurogane also chose to sleep in, and Fai was never sure if it was entirely coincidental or not. Syaoran was about halfway through his mug before he was capable of conversation – not that Fai knew a word of what he was saying, of course, so they were reduced to drawing crude pictures on a scrap of paper. Fai had enjoyed playing Pictionary in the worlds that had had it (had especially enjoyed making sure each of his drawings had a double-entendre for Kurogane to blush over), but this was nothing but a cruel approximation. For the most part, it got the job done, and Syaoran was able to ask for what he wanted for breakfast without Fai parading each packet and can in front of him like some sort of human vending machine.

“Kurogane◆△は◯こ?” Syaoran asked, when Fai was preoccupied by decanting spaghetti hoops into a saucepan.

“He’s still asleep, I think,” Fai replied, taking a punt at what he thought Syaoran might have said. He nodded his head towards the hallway, still busy freeing the little hoops from their can prison. “You can wake him, if you like.”

Syaoran poured another cup of coffee into a fresh mug – as a peace offering for waking Kurogane, presumably – and hobbled away, his hand on the walls for support. Fai swallowed thickly against the apprehension twisting his gut, and the way his heart sped up with anxiety. He forced himself to breathe normally, occupied himself with stirring the pot and grilling bread for toast instead of focusing on his mounting nerves. He hated this feeling, that he had done something wrong and couldn’t do much to fix it when he could’ve just let Kurogane’s comments go, as he had done so many times in the past. He had asked for too much, too soon, and now he was paying for it.

He heard hurried footsteps behind him, and carefully rearranged his wrought expression into something more agreeable.

“We almost ate without you, Kuro-myu,” he commented lightly. He turned, and was brought up short when he didn’t see the familiar towering frame, but instead caught sight of Syaoran digging through the supplies sack, the mug of coffee steaming on the table beside him.

“Everything okay?”

“Kurogane◆△は△し◯でい■,” Syaoran replied, his words hurried and running together. Fai felt his gut twist for an entirely different reason, and his mouth ran dry. Something was clearly wrong. Fai hurried to the living room, through the door that Syaoran had left partially open in his haste.

Kurogane was lying on the floor beside the sofa, the sheets he had slept on tangled and twisted around him, the sofa cushions in complete disarray. Kurogane didn’t register Fai at all, his eyes screwed shut and his teeth bared, jaw clenched tight. He was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. His knuckles were stark white, his fist clenched tightly around his left arm. Kurogane was shaking and trembling, his whole body strained, and as Fai knelt beside him and brushed sweat-soaked hair off of his forehead, he gasped gutterally and flinched away. Worry spited in Fai’s gut, tinged with an anger that he carefully filed away for later, as he continued stroking Kurogane’s hair.

Syaoran appeared beside them, a glass of water in one hand and some pills in the other. Any other time, Fai would have asked what they were giving him, but that wasn’t an option at the moment; he would just have to trust Syaoran.

“Kuro-sama,” Fai said, placing his palm flat on Kurogane’s damp cheek. Kurogane’s eyes opened a sliver, his gaze hard, his pupils contracting in the light. “「Can you sit up?」” Fai asked, not even sure if his Japanese was correct. Kurogane looked at Syaoran, then to the ceiling, and then scrunched his eyes shut again. Probably a ‘no’, if not a ‘what the hell are you even trying to say?’

With difficulty, Fai heaved Kurogane up, supporting him as best he could with Kurogane’s back to his chest. He was much heavier than Fai even when he wasn’t trying to be, and usually Fai liked the feeling of Kurogane’s heavy weight atop him, but in this situation where Fai was trying to hold him up while he writhed and groaned, it was all Fai could do to not fall flat. The initial movement caused Kurogane to call out wordlessly, his back and shoulders going rigid against the pain. He leaned into the support Fai provided, panting hard, shuddering so much that Fai was rocked with the force of it.

“こ◆▲く△つ□◯です” Syaoran said, holding the pills and water out for Kurogane to take. Kurogane didn’t seem to want to pry his hand from his arm, and so while Fai held Kurogane upright and as steady as possible, Syaoran helped him take the medication he had found. Some of the water slopped down Kurogane’s front because he was shaking so much, but the splatters were indistinguishable against the sweat soaking through his shirt.

“How long will it take them to work?” Fai asked Syaoran who, of course, had no idea what he had said. Fai tapped his wrist as he had seen people on other worlds do to indicate time – something to do with wristwatches – which, thankfully, seemed to translate. Syaoran fetched the notepad they had been using that morning to communicate and onto a fresh side of paper drew a clock face, and a separate section. Fai just hoped that the section indicated _twenty minutes_ , and not _four hours_. With his right hand – the only one free – he drew a crude bathtub being filled with water. A hot soak would help relax the tense muscles, and hopefully relieve Kurogane of his pain, but also Fai wanted some more privacy for what he was about to do. When Syaoran excused himself, Fai whispered a soft apology into the salt-coated skin of Kurogane’s cheek, and pressed his fingers into the rock-solid muscle of Kurogane’s left shoulder.

Kurogane had suffered similar episodes in the past, where his amputated arm cramped uncontrollably and caused him pain as if it was still there, but it had never before become quite this bad. Every other time, Fai had been there beside him to help massage the remaining muscle (as he was currently trying to do) or to help distract Kurogane until he fell asleep. Because of their stupid argument the day before, Fai had not been there this time to help, and Kurogane had suffered for hours as a result. Logically, Fai knew that the fault wasn’t his alone – if Kurogane had been more open about the pain sooner, perhaps he wouldn’t have strained himself and brought the episode on. As much as Fai regretted the argument getting as bad as it had, he also couldn’t find it in himself to truly believe that he had been _wrong_ to voice his concerns. It hurt, as much as he tried to not allow it to, that Kurogane wouldn’t be as open with Fai as he expected Fai to be with him.

As anticipated, Kurogane exclaimed once more in pain, breathing hard in an effort to keep control over himself as Fai worked the solid tissue with his hand. At the same time, Fai talked to him, speaking nonsense sentences in Ceresian and Japanese so that Kurogane might have something else to focus on. He told Kurogane about his nightmares, about the way the auroras had looked in Valeria and then in Ceres, about the very first snowball fight he had had, long after he had been taken under Ashura-ou’s wing. He talked until his throat went dry, until he realised Kurogane had not grunted with pain in some minutes. He still flinched and tensed, but even that had grown less violent. Fai hoped the medication, whatever it was, was taking effect.

When Syaoran re-entered the room, they hadn’t moved much, except Kurogane had sunk lower against Fai’s chest, sagging in increments as Fai worked the muscle loose with nothing but pure force. With Syaoran’s help they pried Kurogane’s hand off of his arm, the fingers curled into a claw that didn’t seem to want to relax, and navigated Kurogane across the hallway into the bathroom. They propped him up against the wall to take his ruined clothes off, still each supporting a side, but they were batted away. Kurogane fumbled one-handedly with the buttons and zips, and as Syaoran caught his eye, Fai shook his head in response. Kurogane’s pride would take a hit from all of the babying as it was; it was best to let him at least keep this small shred of his dignity. Luckily, Kurogane was not as bashful about nakedness, so being helped into the bath by both Fai and Syaoran was a non-issue which he at least didn’t push them away from. He sank into the water with a sound of equal parts pain and relief, letting his arm and shoulder be submerged in their entirety.

Fai gathered up the rapidly-cooling clothes and took them to the kitchen to be washed, his thoughts jumbled and swimming in his head. He wiped hot tears from his cheeks and scrubbed Kurogane’s clothes mindlessly, wracked with tremors that were his and his alone. Seeing Kurogane like that was…

He never wanted to repeat it again.

A touch to his elbow and he almost jumped out of his skin. Syaoran pressed a dry tea towel into his hands, using a hard look and a nod to indicate that he thought Fai needed to get back into the bathroom.

To his absolute horror, Kurogane was sat up in the bath, his chin (and throat and parts of his chest) lathered up sloppily with what he realised was shaving soap when he saw the accompanying straight razor clutched clumsily in Kurogane’s hand. Was he _trying_ to hurt himself?! Fai snatched the blade deftly from Kurogane’s grasp, the resulting glare turned upon him hazy and unfocused.

“Come here,” Fai said under his breath, taking Kurogane’s chin in hand and holding him steady. 

“「You look good angry,」” Kurogane said, his voice a low gravelly rumble that reverberated down Fai’s fingers. His red irises were almost lost in the darkness of his pupils, the painkillers or muscle relaxants or whatever Syaoran had given him doing their work. The blade sang quietly as Fai pulled it down the line of Kurogane’s jaw, tanned skin left smooth in its wake.

“Well, luckily for you, I’m still angry.” Fai muttered, wiping the razor clean and going in for another stroke, realising it was true as he said it. Kurogane allowed him to turn his head this way and that but kept his eyes on him, watching intently. “I need you to trust me more,” Fai added, and when the meaning didn’t translate, he tried again in Japanese: “「 _Trust me._ 」”

“「You’ve got a」喉※刃□持×♦︎” Kurogane pointed out, a wry twist at the corners of his lips, glancing down at Fai’s hand. _You’ve got a blade at my throat_. Evidently, he hadn’t lost any of his faculties, even as blissed-out as he appeared now that the pills had taken effect.

“「That is not what I mean.」”

Silence fell once more, save for the scrape of the razor and the dripping of the tap into the bathwater. The good mood Kurogane was in seemed to evaporate with the steam, his face falling into a scowl, though he made no effort to push Fai away.

“「I trust you,」” Kurogane insisted somewhat defensively, his slurred voice raising,「”you put yourself in danger-」“

“「I do not mean」— augh!” Fai clenched his mouth shut and concentrated instead on manoeuvring around Kurogane’s Adam’s apple. This would have been a difficult conversation for the two of them to have _without_ the translation barrier, let alone when Fai was trying to pick through a language that was still as foreign to him as it ever was. He did not want it to dissolve into another shouting match, not when so much could be said in the wrong way. Even more than that, he didn’t want their relationship – whatever became of it – to be built on a foundation of fighting, on ground gained from the other in anger.

His work finished, he wiped the razor clean once more and folded it away, contemplating the best route forwards. He didn’t have the words, not yet, but Kurogane had always understood Fai the best when he wasn’t saying anything at all.

Gently so as not to jostle it, Fai laid his hand on Kurogane’s shoulder, atop the skin that was still raw and red with fingernail scratches.

“「Trust me, with _this_.」” Fai implored, hoping it would be enough to convey what he needed. _Trust me with your pain. Trust me enough to be vulnerable with me._

Kurogane’s gaze fell, and for a sinking moment, Fai feared that this would be a compromise Kurogane would not be able to make. At the very least, he now understood what Fai meant; that Fai did not want Kurogane to let him get away with lying. Fai wanted Kurogane to learn to lean on him and draw support and strength from him, physically and mentally, as Fai himself was learning to do.

Fear curdled within him as Kurogane continued to hesitate. Just because Fai wanted more of a reciprocative relationship didn’t mean it would be what Kurogane wanted, too. What if he had finally asked too much? What if-

“「Alright.」Yes.” Kurogane said finally, the coming together of the two languages almost poignant, shocking Fai from his inner monologue. “I will... try.”

Tentatively, Fai wiped away the remaining streaks of shaving cream on Kurogane’s chin with a damp washcloth. Red eyes continued to watch him wordlessly, patiently, as he stalled, his mind completely devoid of any idea of what else to say. Without the weight of the argument on his mind, without the fear of being rejected for his stupid mistake and for asking for things he didn’t deserve, Fai found the attention protective and comforting.

An old realisation resurfaced within him, one that had first been borne of a bond made in blood. He could run to the ends of the Earth – to the ends of thousands of Earths – and still, this man would be there, would still fight at his side and would still break right through every one of his carefully constructed protective layers as if they were made solely to let him in. Kurogane had seen every dark corner of Fai’s past, saw the multitudes of ways he was struggling to overcome the things that had happened to him, and yet Kurogane still loved him with endless, ferocious surety. Kurogane could encourage Fai to do better - to _be_ better - and would still love him unconditionally if he failed.

Kurogane loved him so much that he was willing to try do better, himself, _for Fai._

“It’s not perfect,” he murmured in his native tongue, brushing a droplet of blood away from nicked skin, “but you don’t look like a caveman any more, at least.”

-

Later – much later, after Kurogane had slept off the initial hit of the muscle relaxants with Fai curled around him like a dragon around its hoard – Fai inhaled deeply, steeling himself for what was to come.

Ever true to his word, Kurogane had already made the first tentative steps towards opening up. They had lain together that afternoon, warm in the bed that Fai had found so cold the night before, and as Fai carded his fingers through Kurogane’s hair and Kurogane in turn stroked the hand Fai had splayed across his chest, he spoke carefully and haltingly about the pain in his shoulder. The way that he couldn’t lie on it in certain angles without feeling it for the whole day afterwards. The way that it twinged and cramped, even now, if he carried heavy things for too long. The way it worsened in the cold weather – the way it would _always_ worsen in cold weather, no matter how good the prosthetic was.

Fai listened silently, occasionally offering wordless reassurances that he understood what he was being told. Inwardly, he lamented the loss of his magic more than he had during the rest of their stay in this world to date – he couldn’t heal with it, but creating heat was _easy_ , and Fai was quickly learning that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Kurogane’s comfort. Creating heat from cold could have been the most difficult charm possible, and Fai would have done it without question if it would help Kurogane’s pain. Without any of his magic at all, the immense reservoir of its power so far out of reach that even his eyes had changed colour, he was powerless to do anything that might help.

With a sinking feeling, he realised that there _was_ still something he could do - something that didn’t require magic, but instead required a huge reserve of bravery – and as he looked down into Kurogane’s eyes, and the way that he gazed back unflinchingly, Fai found he had bravery in spades.

That was what spurred him to collect the pad of paper and pen, and to call Syaoran into the bedroom. With Syaoran perched at the foot of the bed, Fai found his nerves curdling and writhing within him again. His hands shook as he hovered the pen above crisp white paper, his mind utterly blank.

Warm pressure stroked across his lower back, Kurogane’s large palm flat on his spine, and he exhaled steadily. He could do this. It would all be alright.

In between steady, controlled pen strokes, and Japanese that was becoming less and less broken every day, Fai told them what had happened when he went missing. He told them about the spectre of the woman and her magical birds. He told them about the mindless way in which he had followed her into the forest, only to become lost and disorientated when the aurora had evaporated above him. How he had woken to a white horse’s snout, and been guided by her and her three ravens back to his family, only for them to disappear again without a trace. Lastly, he told them that it had all been due to the pull of magic, and that he had chosen to be drawn in by it.

All the while he waited with breath held tight in his chest for the inevitable judgement to fall upon him. He had been stupid, careless, reckless. He had forgotten that he was supposed to be valuing his own life, that he was supposed to be doing his best to return to Syaoran, Kurogane and Mokona safely every day - not just for _them_ but for _himself_. He should have ignored the strange woman, he should not have put himself in such danger. Hell, he should not have even gone out alone, that night – he should have waited for morning, when they could all travel together in the safety of daylight.

He waited, and yet… and yet.

It never came.

His story finished, Fai pressed his lips firmly together. He stared down at his drawings, at Big Kitty beside the white horse and her black birds, then at Big Puppy and an alternate form of Little Puppy, huddled together far away. He didn’t realise he was shaking again until Syaoran’s olive-skinned hands covered his own, and Kurogane’s fingers dug into the skin of his back. Syaoran looked up at him searchingly, and Fai found he couldn’t dampen the fear that lined his face. Syaoran smiled suddenly and, in a move that mimicked Fai so thoroughly that all of the air rushed from his lungs in surprised laughter, Syaoran framed Fai’s face in his hands, clapping them together gently. In that one gesture, and in the unmoving pressure on his spine, Fai knew he was forgiven.

“ぼ▲□◯はコ◆ね” Syaoran said, the words ringing clear even through the barrier of language.

_You get this from me._


	8. Wordplaying

The next day dawned foggy and overcast, the sun hidden behind thick clouds. The air itself tasted wet on every inhale, and the snow slipped around underfoot.

Kurogane walked alongside the sled, his boots creating deep depressions in the snow’s surface. Fai pushed the sled beside him to allow Kurogane’s shoulder a rest while they traversed a gentle decline in altitude. Every so often, when the decline grew steeper, Fai would step onto the back of the sled and ride it down the slope, both he and Syaoran whooping joyfully, their hair whipping around their cold-flushed faces. Fai exerted a much higher level of control over the sled than he had the first time he tried such a maneouvre, and Kurogane didn’t have to follow behind them picking up disloged tins of food, at least.

They had long since fallen out of sight of the lake in the basin of the valley, the view obscured by tall rocky crags and even taller trees. Their path took them through a disused logging camp, its trailers empty and barren, hidden between stacks of larch logs piled high and iced with snow.

Fai and Syaoran were chatting easily between them, playing a guessing game to both pass the time and learn a bit of each other’s languages. They tried once or twice to rope Kurogane into it, but he was content just to listen and keep his eyes on the treeline.

“『Sorry, try again.』” Syaoran said cheerfully. Fai stuck his lip out and looked pleadingly towards Kurogane, who rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get pouty just because you can’t win a kids’ game,” he admonished.

“Kuro-daddy is so mean!” Fai wailed, the sound echoing loudly.

“Shut up, idiot, I’m not your father,” Kurogane said, entirely lacking in malice. “Try again.”

Fai ‘hmm’ed, glancing around himself with wide eyes. Kurogane shook his head and continued his watch – they hadn’t come across anything dangerous during the daytime, _yet_ , but Kurogane would not be caught out just from being over-complacent. The path around them was barely more than a single track road through the trees, with plenty of twists and turns that would make a perfect ambush spot for a predator, or worse. He didn’t see any predators though, or even any signs of predators, no matter how far they walked. It didn’t make sense to him in the slightest; a place such as this, with plenty of room for dens and plenty of prey animals around, there _should_ be pretators. The only such animals they had come across so far since landing in this world were the _cwm annwn_ , and Kurogane didn’t count those as the same in his mind.

“『Is it…』き？” Fai guessed in Syaoran’s language, after a prolonged pause.

“『Sorry, no.』”

“き□▲る◯？”

“『Nope,』”

“Is it ‘rabbit’?” Kurogane interjected in Japanese, repeating himself in Ceresian because he hadn’t learnt the kid’s word for it. Syaoran grinned, saying something rapid-fire that he didn’t catch, and Fai suddenly looked very pleased with himself. “What did he say?”

“He said you are correct, Kuro-záychik.” Fai said, “so it is your turn to spy!”

The penny dropped.

“You fucker,” Kurogane griped, to which Fai just smiled sweetly. “You set me up.”

“Yes,” Fai chirped, “spy quickly; we are ск&ч#@.”

“I don’t even speak the kid’s language.”

“It is fine,” Fai said, waving a hand, “on Kuro-mya’s turn we speak ‘Yaponese’.”

“We aren’t speaking _Japanese_ ,” Kurogane stressed, “because I’m not playing.”

Fai, as usual, continued as if he hadn’t heard a word Kurogane had said. “Pick thing to spy, and say ‘I spy, with my small eye-‘”

“-with my **_what_** -“

“-and describe thing you are spying.”

“Kurogane◆△, Fai◆△,” Syaoran interrupted, “『there.』“

While they bickered, the sled had crested the top of a steep drop. Following the line of Syaoran’s pointed finger, Kurogane blinked, his eyes widening.

“Is that-“ he started.

“«-the» @х>&$ик£?” Fai finished.

Below them, in the bottom of the slope, was a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a mound, upon which stood a lone cabin. No smoke curled up from its chimney, because apart from three travellers who spent the night a few days previously, it had been abandoned.

It was the very same cabin Kurogane had found when they had first arrived in that world.

With Kurogane in front and Fai behind controlling the descent of the sled, the three of them ventured down into the clearing. Due to the snowfall and the wind, any footprints left by them (and later by Fai on his own) had completely vanished, along with the arse-print Fai had left in the snow that blanketed the cabin’s roof.

Truthfully, the sight of the cabin troubled Kurogane. They had traversed around the entire lake and found many abandoned dwellings, but they had not seen any other routes out of the area, buried as they would have been. More troubling than that was the continued absence of Mokona, and their total inability to even get a good lead on where they might be – the mage and kid couldn’t discern Mokona’s energy signature during the aurora, and Kurogane didn’t sense anything either way. Wandering around did not seem to be working for them; if they kept it up without making any progress, they would soon run out of food.

Getting a fire going in the stove inside the cabin was much faster this time, with the bed of ash and charcoal left over from their previous visit still contained in its belly. Kurogane stoked it with a poker in his metal hand and tested the heat of the air with his flesh one. He didn’t feel cold so much as _damp,_ that day, which in some ways was more unpleasant but at least meant that his shoulder wasn’t as aggravated as it might have been. Fai’s hands snaked over Kurogane’s arms from behind to undo his cloak without asking first, prising it free and hanging it up alongside his own and Syaoran’s so that they might dry off a little. Syaoran made a surprised noise behind them – he stood in the middle of the cabin, the dusty book of mythology in his hands. He held the book closed, his thumbs brushing slowly over the hard cover. Dropping the book on the desk he turned and stumbled unevenly out of the cabin without a word and, instinctively, Kurogane and Fai followed after him.

“«Everything alright?»” Fai asked, squinting through the thick fog to the sled, where Syaoran was rooting around in the sack of supplies they had yet to bring into the cabin with them. The kid was frantic, scooping out tin after tin and box after box as he dug through the sack and dumping everything onto the ground. Then, with a shaking hand, he drew one last thing out; a book, with a hard cover, and a picture of what looked like a Yosei riding a dog on the front. Beside Kurogane, Fai inhaled sharply.

“What is it?” Kurogane asked. Syaoran started back towards them, squeezing through the tiny gap between Kurogane and Fai in the doorway. There on the desk where he had left it was the same book, completely identical in every way to the one he had just retrieved from the sled, right down to the picture of the Yosei and the lettering Kurogane couldn’t read. “There’s two books?”

“No, Kuro-sama,” Fai said, his grey magic-less eyes jumping between each of the books on the desk, “there is one book.”

That… didn’t make any sense. Ordinarily he would be happy to just assume that Fai had forgotten how to count in his language, but Fai’s rapid recollection of the things he had learnt in Shura put that theory to bed before he could even voice it.

“What do you mean?”

“『There was』さつ『one』った” said Syaoran quietly. _There was only one book._ But then how were there two of them, now?

“Do you think someone’s been here?”

“No, that is incorrect, I think…” Fai trailed off, his brows furrowing. He looked around, but huffed as he did not find what he was looking for – probably something to write with. “I think, aurora is two.” He said as he held his hands out flat, separate from each other. Kurogane wracked his brain trying to figure out what Fai meant. He couldn’t have meant two hands, so two… things? Two surfaces? Two… planes?

Wait.

“The aurora is another world? Another dimension?”

Fai nodded solemnly. He clearly had more to say but didn’t know how to, and Kurogane just hoped he would remember what it was by the time the next aurora rolled around so that they could discuss it properly. The implication that Fai thought the aurora created a completely different dimension was…

Well, come to think of it… It seemed plausible?

Kurogane was anything but a wizard who could travel between dimensions, but Fai was exactly that; he would defer to Fai’s experience in this, even if Fai didn’t yet seem totally convinced by his own theory. It would make sense, to his mind, and it explained why the fishing hut that Kurogane had destroyed during the first aurora had looked undamaged in the morning light. It explained why, even though the night had been clear, he couldn’t find Fai’s footprints in the snow in order to search for him when he had gone missing. It explained why they now had two copies of the same book, identical right down to the scuffs on their spines.

It didn’t necessarily explain how they were _travelling_ between these two planes, but they would figure that out in time, he was sure.

“We should find that horse-woman – Rhiannon.” Kurogane said. She was the only being so far that seemed to exist on both sides of the aurora apart from them; maybe, if they caught her as a human, she would be able to give them answers. From what Fai had told them, she didn’t seem _malevolent_ , beyond leading the wizard blindly into the forest, and even then she was the one who lead him back out again. Given the presence of the _cwm annwn_ that night, and the fact that Fai had not run into them again, could she have actually been protecting him, and guiding him back to his family so that he wouldn’t cross paths with the otherworld’s wolves?

Syaoran agreed enthusiastically with what Kurogane had said, once Fai had somewhat reluctantly relayed it to him. He yammered on about something Kurogane had no hope of figuring out, pointing between the two books.

“He says…” Fai started, “he says we can.. have things? I do not…”

Syaoran continued to talk, gesticulating in the air between them, and Fai shook his head apologetically. Dejected, the kid dropped his hands back down to his sides, and Fai patted his shoulder.

They stayed for a short while longer inside the tiny cabin while their cloaks dried, sharing a quick lunch of the rubberiest instant noodles Kurogane had ever had the misfortune of putting into his mouth.

The kid picked through his noodles listlessly, pushing aside the chalky peas and dehydrated chicken, his shoulders slumped. Their situation seemed to be increasingly difficult on him, and as the conversation lulled awkwardly, all of them growing increasingly fatigued with the block in communication, Kurogane started to understand why that was.

It hadn’t been as difficult for him and Fai, but spending half a year with nothing but each other in the candlelight of a shared tent would cause anyone to pick up a phrase or two in a foreign language, and they had already able to talk to each other even in just a basic manner when they landed.

This was the first time in a long time that they had all three of them been separated from Mokona, and so none of them knew a word in Syaoran’s language. The kid was probably feeling incredibly lonely and isolated, on top of the frustration of his injury. Fai had seen that, right from the start, and what Kurogane had first taken as him being overly clingy and coddling was actually an attempt to help the kid out a bit.

Learning each other’s languages was a fun and challenging addition to travelling games, sure, but it wasn’t a solution to the overarching problem, and not being able to have a serious conversation or strategise effectively was creating other issues altogether. As it was, Kurogane was more than ready to get the pork bun back, although that wasn’t entirely due to the language problem.

When lunch was finished, they piled everything back into the sack on the sled. Fai let Kurogane push (which probably had less to do with Kurogane’s shoulder and more to do with the incline they were about to climb), and Syaoran settled into the seat, balancing his ankle out carefully in front of him. Fai walked alongside Kurogane, his hands in the pockets of his cloak where he would usually be swinging them around.

Without much contemplation, Kurogane knew what would lift their sombre moods.

“I spy, with my little eye,” he started, begrudgingly. The smiling faces that turned his way in response were brighter than a fire in the night.

-

Evening drew in quickly in this world, the parting fog washing the sky in pinks and oranges that were much warmer than the wintery landscape beneath. Their scavenged clothes retained more heat than the ones they had landed in, and so for the moment, with the sun still peeking in and out of the shade and their cloaks trapping an additional layer of insulating air around them, they were almost comfortable.

Kurogane knew that comfort wouldn’t last, however. Once the sun dipped behind the mountains – which wouldn’t be very long, now – the shadows would consume everything and the frigid cold would become an all-encompassing freeze, turning the very air they breathed into ice. It hadn’t been a problem for them, yet, because there had been no shortage of shelter orbiting the lake. Not all of the buildings they had slept in had had stoves or central heating, but they each had four walls and a roof, and so they had been better than nothing.

Upon leaving the lone cabin in the clearing, Kurogane directed their little convoy towards the treeline opposite – the same treeline that Fai had carried Syaoran through some days ago. It made sense to him, in his mind, to take them in the direction they had not yet travelled, and when Fai said to him in hushed tones that he believed this was the way the horse-woman had led him, Kurogane only became more certain that this was the right choice.

However, with the night looming over them and no adequate shelter in sight, he started to have some doubts. There was more than enough firewood around in the form of fallen sticks and branches to sustain them until morning, but that was only if the wind held off as it had so graciously been doing so far that day. He knew from mounting experience that the weather could change at the drop of a hat, here, especially when cradled in a small valley as they were at the moment.

It looked bleak, but they had pulled through worse scrapes, and he was not going to let his family freeze to death. He was, however, preoccupied by it, and so when he felt Fai’s hand on his elbow, his attention refocused with a jump.

“Kuro-míly,” said Fai, his voice low, his eyes sharp and trained upwards. “«Look».”

In the sky, a flash of black shot across a gap in the high-reaching trees. Kurogane leaned to the side to catch a better look, but whatever it was, it was fast, and regardless of the angle, he was unable to get a good glimpse. Kurogane turned the sled and moved forwards in that direction slowly, hearing nothing but their footfalls and the sound of wings. Together he and Fai wove through the trees, their paths coming apart and joining again, the sled moving easily between the old trunks, the snow cushioning the rise and fall of the ground.

Because of his position on the sled, Syaoran was the first to break the treeline and once more emerge before the lake, Kurogane and Fai right behind him.

The frozen ice of the lake's surface glittered in the last rays of sunlight, the peach-coloured sky reflected in its surface, broken only by the figure of a woman stood at its centre. A sword hung at her side, unsheathed, its double-sided blade flashing as she moved. Three ravens – the black shapes they had followed through the woods – dove down to her, and landed gracefully on her proffered arm. Fai leaned forwards, as if to move towards her, and Kurogane’s hand shot out to hold him still, the action answering his unasked question.

This was Rhiannon.


	9. Queen of the Aurora

Rhiannon stood barefoot on the frozen lake, her black rooks shuffling their feathers and croaking amongst themselves. A frigid breeze pulled Fai’s cloak and the ends of his hair, and Kurogane’s hold on his arm tightened – he had started to move towards the ice again.

The orange tones in the evening sky melted into greens and purples, and this time, Fai was ready for the rush of the aurora blossoming above them. His magic swelled inside him, his taut muscles relaxing as his full awareness was returned. Once more he could feel the invisible thread of energy that lingered within everything that surrounded them. He could feel the vast ocean of unbridled power within himself, lapping at his mind in gentle waves that neither pushed nor pulled, ready to be drawn upon.

Rhiannon had that same power. She was practically brimming with it, the aurora reflecting on her sword and her white dress, her-

“Get a grip,” Kurogane hissed, pulling him back a third time.

“That’s her, isn’t it,” Syaoran said from the sled, also transfixed by the apparition, “Queen Rhiannon.”

“I believe so.” Fai replied, his voice a hoarse croak. He swallowed to clear his throat. “It’s the same person I saw the other night, in any case.”

“What does she want?” asked Kurogane. None of them had an answer for that; beyond the way that she was depicted, there wasn’t much about Rhiannon in the book Syaoran had found.

For the first time, Rhiannon moved. She stepped towards them slowly, gracefully, gliding weightlessly over the frozen water. Kurogane released Fai in favour of reaching for the sled, towards where Ginryuu was secured. The ravens chattered and shifted along Rhiannon’s arm. It was Fai’s turn to hold Kurogane back.

“Wait,” he said softly, in response to the incredulous expression on Kurogane’s face. “Not yet, Kuro-sama.”

The crows settled as Kurogane straightened up, Ginryuu still in place. Rhiannon danced her way towards the group as if she hadn’t registered the commotion at all, her expression calm and serene, eyes half-lidded. She didn’t make a sound, her bare feet leaving no melted footprints in the ice. When she drew almost level with them, as far away from the divide of ice and snow as they were, the crows took once more to the sky. They shed their black feathers in a stream of plumes and they burst into light and colour, the same as the aurora overhead, and circled soundlessly.

Rhiannon approached, stepping lightly into the snow. It didn’t crunch at all beneath the soles of her feet. She crouched before Syaoran where he sat on the sled, smiling pleasantly, and again Fai had to stop Kurogane from reaching for his sword. When Rhiannon spoke, it was in a language unfamiliar to Fai, the vowels and consonants and fricatives and plosives all flowing and rolling over one another, her speech as much of a dance as her movements, and even with the magic thick in the air, not a word of it made sense.

Fai exchanged a look with Kurogane, who shrugged, just as clueless as he was. Syaoran didn’t seem to be similarly disadvantaged, however, as it was only a moment before he was speaking to her in the same looping, lilting language.

Fai and Kurogane could do nothing but observe the conversation that followed between the Queen and their ward. Fai watched Syaoran and Rhiannon both for signs of tension or animosity and saw none; Rhiannon herself was difficult to read, but Fai knew Syaoran well, knew the expressions on his face and the posture of his body. Syaoran was cautious, but not uncomfortable, as he nodded his head again and Rhiannon placed her hand upon his injured ankle. There was no glow, no magic circle or incantation, but Fai felt the tug on all of those invisible threads all the same, and though he knew she was using her magic, he did not fear it. Kurogane’s wrist, still held in his hand, jumped as his the muscles in his arms flexed restlessly, ready to surge forwards at a split-second’s notice.

When Rhiannon stood, Syaoran turned his foot smoothly and easily, before beaming and bowing his head low in a show of… gratitude, it seemed. Satisfied, Rhiannon passed them by without a glance spared for the two adults, her brightly coloured birds trailing in her wake as she passed into the darkness of the trees.

Just like that, she was gone, the immense force of her power gone with her. Fai breathed.

“Kid,” Kurogane broke the silence, his voice a harsh whisper, “what the hell just happened?”

Syaoran, staring at the last place they had seen Rhiannon, blinked, and came back to himself. “What?”

“We couldn’t understand what you were saying,” Fai explained, “she healed your ankle, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did.”

“In that case, while you tell us what we’re being put up to,” Kurogane said, “ _you_ can push the sled.”

“Kuro-grumble is so strict,” Fai teased, recovered from the strange effect Rhiannon’s magic had on him. He took hold of the back of the sled and held it steady while Syaoran regained his feet. “There are some houses just along the shore; we can have a break there.”

There were houses, right where Fai remembered, not far from where Rhiannon had led him out of the forest the first time. The rowboat was still half-submerged in the lake, casting odd, overlapping shadows under the fiery aurora.

The houses were nothing more than single rooms with bunkbeds; they didn’t contain stoves or fireplaces or any other kind of heating, so the three opted to sit outside instead. There were a pair of rickety picnic tables to the side of the houses, a fire pit bordered by rocks in the ground between them. They lit a fire in the pit with magic – it wouldn’t have caught on the wet, snowlogged earth any other way – and squeezed onto the same side of a single bench, Syaoran once again sandwiched between them.

“That was Queen Rhiannon, as we suspected,” Syaoran started, staring into the fire as it jumped and crackled. “She said she had been watching us, and that she thinks we can help her.”

Kurogane folded his arms and kicked out one of his feet towards the fire pit, resting the sole of his boot against a rock. “Help her with what?” He asked.

“Her child has been stolen,” Syaoran replied slowly, “she wants us to find him, and… ‘complete his journey’.”

“There aren’t any kids around,” Kurogane pointed out. Fai frowned and leaned back against the table, snow melting through to his elbows, his thoughts rushing around and coming together in his head.

“We’ve already met him,” said Syaoran, “she didn’t say where, though.”

“What the fuck does _that_ mean-”

“The _Mari Lwyd_ skull,” Fai murmured. “Rhiannon is sometimes depicted as a horse and a foal, isn’t she? And ‘complete his journey’ sounds like…” he shrugged a shoulder, his voice hushed, “like he’s dead.”

He looked up to find Kurogane studying him from the corner of his eyes, his sharp features illuminated in the fire and aurora both. Between them, Syaoran nodded thoughtfully.

“It makes sense.”

“If she knows where it is, why can’t she fetch it herself?” Kurogane grumbled, “what are we getting out of this?”

“Besides Syaoran’s healed ankle?” Fai countered, smirking. “You’re so ruthless.”

“If we do this for her, she said that ‘we will all find what we are looking for’,” Syaoran said, leaning forwards, his elbows on his legs. “I think she meant we would find Mokona, so I agreed.” He looked to Fai, and then to Kurogane as he spoke. “Sorry, I thought you knew what we were talking about, at the time. I should have asked.”

Kurogane clicked his tongue. “Don’t worry about it, kid.”

“Mmm, it’s fine,” Fai agreed, and inched closer to Syaoran, whispering conspiratorially. “I think what daddy meant to say is that we would have helped, anyway.”

“What was that?”

Fai made a face, sticking his tongue out at Kurogane, who swiped for him from behind Syaoran. Fai dodged, his victory laugh cut off when the picnic bench gave an almighty _SNAP_ and sent the three of them tumbling sideways to the ground.

“Oops,” Fai tittered, on the bottom of the pile of tangled limbs, “I guess Kuro-flail was too much for- _ow!_ That hurts!”

Syaoran wriggled out from between them, Kurogane’s full weight falling onto Fai, his hand still outstretched and clamped down on Fai’s scalp.

Gasping howls echoed through the forest, and the three of them froze, their breath held. For several long seconds, there was no sound except the sound of the breeze, and of the trees rustling around them, and the fire crackling in the pit. Despite himself, fear coiled in Fai’s gut and shuddered through his muscles.

Syaoran was the first to speak.

“It’s okay,” he said, “if we can hear them that loudly, they must be far away.”

Fai exhaled smoothly. He lifted his head from the melting snow and shot Kurogane an entirely inappropriate look through the fingers he had splayed across the side of Fai’s face.

“As fun as _this_ is,” he said suggestively, smirking and wagging his eyebrows, “we really ought to start looking for that skull, if we don’t want to get caught by the wolves first.”

Kurogane, of course, rolled his eyes skyward and ignored the provocation, clambering off of Fai without a word.

Retracing their steps, they followed the curve of the lake, revisiting each cluster of houses they had scavenged just a few days previously. Just as with the hunter’s cabin, all of the supplies they had taken were replenished, the tins and cartons exact replicas of their already-looted counterparts, yet it wasn’t until they once again came upon the hideously tassled ghillie coat that Fai considered there may be a hitch in their plan.

There was, ostensibly, a reason that Rhiannon needed them to recover her lost child for her, because otherwise (as Kurogane had suggested) she could have easily done it herself. If they were correct in their conclusion about the _Mari Lwyd_ , it seemed unlikely that Rhiannon wouldn’t have considered the possibility of her child being in his foal form, so that would not have been what was preventing her from retrieving the skull. Fai was certain that they had come across the Mari Lwyd totem before the coat, but all of the houses looked similar to one another, so it was difficult to be completely sure, but as yet, the skull was still nowhere to be found. It occurred to him that, if they could take a book during the aurora and have that same book exist in its original place in the daytime, then it wasn’t entirely outside of the realm of possibility that the skull also existed elsewhere during the aurora – or, even, that it didn’t exist within the aurora at all.

The night grew late, the silver moon peeking through the twisting streaks in the aurora as it descended towards the mountains. A tired Fai rested his weight on his forearms, folded over the back of the sled.

“We ought to have come across the _Mari Lwyd_ by now.” he said wearily. “If we were to find it on this plane, I mean.”

“I was beginning to think the same thing, but I wasn’t sure if I was right .” Syaoran said. He had perked up considerably, now that he was able to move around freely and assist in the search, and had been just as amusingly bewildered by the ghillie coat as Kurogane had been. Much like his true father, Syaoran was intrigued by investigation, undeterred by their lack of success. “Everything else seems to be where you and Kurogane-san found it, apart from the skull.”

“You think it isn’t here at all?” Kurogane surmised. Fai shrugged.

“It’d explain why Rhiannon can’t get to it, if she’s also a horse in the daytime. I haven’t heard of many horses that can turn doorknobs.”

The group discussed their theories and options – while Kurogane was still staunchly in the camp of ‘she is sending us on a wild goose chase, and we should just fight her to get the white thing back’, he also seemed amenable to what Fai and Syaoran thought, and what their instincts were telling them. Fai was a terrible judge of character - always had been - but Syaoran was the one who had spoken to her, and if he trusted Rhiannon’s honesty, then so would they.

There was a solitary single bed in the cabin they chose to spend the night in, its thick covers piled high in layers of cotton and fleece. Even through the dust that clung to the fibres, Fai could smell the down feathers within the duvet as he drew it up and over his chin with a contented sigh. As Syaoran clambered in beside him, the problem with these sleeping arrangements presented themselves. Fai rose up onto his side, head propped up on his hand, and watched Kurogane spread blankets across the floor beside the bed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he challenged.

“In a minute, I plan to be sleeping.” Kurogane replied dryly, stealing one of Fai’s pillows out from under him and dropping it to the head of his makeshift futon.

“You’re going to sleep down there, on the floor.”

“If you’ve got a problem, feel free to magic us up another bed. You and the kid may be skinny but there’s still no way we’re getting three of us in there at the same time.”

“Stubborn as a mule,” Fai muttered under his breath, throwing the covers off of himself and swinging his legs out. “Take my place.”

“Mage-“

“I’m sleeping on this floor whether you take my place or not,” Fai interrupted, rising to his feet. He placed a hand flat on Kurogane’s chest and pushed _down_ , forcing the ninja to sit on the mattress. “And I’m not the one who will be sore in the morning.”

A multitude of possible emotions expressed themselves in the downturn of Kurogane’s eyebrows and the line of his mouth.

“Please.” Fai added sweetly, a soft smile on his lips, deftly undoing the top few buttons of Kurogane’s shirt and smoothing the collar away from his throat (for his comfort, of course). Kurogane huffed and grumbled and made a big fuss but ultimately relented, and though he and Syaoran almost didn’t fit in the narrow bed together, he didn’t make any more complaints once he was settled.

Fai hid a smile and arranged himself on his front on the ‘futon’, his folded arms tucked under his head. Kurogane’s fingers drifted down the blade of his shoulder and the muscle of his upper arm, and almost automatically, he laced them with his own. His thumb stroked across broad, rough knuckles, falling into their dips and cresting their rises, and Kurogane squeezed.

“I’m not sure what we are supposed to do once we find the _Mari Lwyd_ ,” Syaoran wondered aloud from Kurogane’s other side, hidden from Fai’s line of sight. “If the aurora isn’t active, how do we return the skull to Rhiannon?”

Good question, Fai thought, brushing Kurogane’s wrist and palm with the backs of his fingernails. The auroras seemed to occur at least every few nights, however, they had not yet occurred consecutively. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that, once they found the skull, they would just be waiting around for a day or two for Rhiannon to find them again.

In all honesty, Fai was sort of alright with that. As much as he had grown used to moving around a lot, as anyone would be by that point in their journey, there was still a bone-deep fatigue within him from the cold, and it was further exacerbated when his magic was gone. Another day spent doing nothing but lazing around in the warmth sounded ideal to him, though he knew that his companions wouldn’t share his opinion, preferring action over inaction – not that they would really have a choice.

Fai shifted a fraction on his makeshift bed. He would definitely be sore in the morning, and it was entirely all right with him.


	10. Y Fari Lwyd

The run of mild weather came to an abrupt end.

Overnight, the temperature plummeted inside the tiny, single-roomed hut, and when Kurogane awoke it was to the screaming of the wind and Fai’s chattering teeth.

He ran through his kata in the pitiful amount of spare space between the foot of the bed and the cupboards fixed to the wall opposite with relatively minimal protest from his shoulder, his breath fogging in the air. As soon as he was done and his muscles warmed up, he planned to get the other two out of bed and then (hopefully) to a house with a fireplace; there was no way they were going to stay any longer in what was barely more than a trailer with just one bed between them and risk freezing to death every night, if he could help it.

The two in the bed woke up before Kurogane needed to wake them himself – Fai bewildered to find that he was somehow snuggled up beside Syaoran and not on the floor where he had fallen asleep – and while it had grown brighter outside, the wind still ripped across the landscape, pulling clouds of snow off of the ground. It was a miracle the sled had remained in the spot they had left it; Kurogane would not have thought that the supplies would weigh it down enough, but he was thankful that the sled hadn’t gone flying away, so he couldn’t complain.

Kurogane threw their coats and cloaks over to Fai and Syaoran. They were still damp at the edges, but Kurogane didn’t want to wait for them to dry out completely, and they’d only get wet again as soon as they ventured outside. 

“We need to go.”

Obediently, Syaoran jumped out of bed, his coat on and boots laced almost before Kurogane had finished speaking. Fai was another matter, his face pinched and movements stiff, almost reluctant to come out from the nest of blankets once he had caught a look of the world outside. Kurogane jerked his head towards the door, wondering if the blonde had not woken up enough yet to understand basic Japanese. Fai looked grave, and there was an air of twitchy nervousness to him all of a sudden, Kurogane thought, as he scrubbed his face with his hands. His eyes fell to Kurogane’s arm, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“П%&ближ@%#ся ш#@%м- um, a big… bad sky.”

“Bad sky?” Kurogane repeated. Did he mean a storm?

Whatever Fai meant, he didn’t find out, as they had neglected to remember to bring the pen and paper with them, and there was nothing in the hut that could be used to draw. Fai reluctantly bundled himself up tight in his coat and cloak, and followed them out into the glacially cold morning.

Thankfully, it wasn’t snowing. The day was windy enough to catch the air in their throats but the sky was blue with no trace of the fog from the day before, and Kurogane could see right across the frozen lake to the government office on the other side. With their heads bowed, the three of them backtracked towards the larger houses, dragging the sled along behind them. Kurogane wondered momentarily if coming out in this weather had been reckless, but the thought was chased away by the sense of haste coiled around his chest.

The skull totem was in the first house they tried, because of course it was.

Kurogane didn’t feel relief or happiness or anything like that when he held its miniscule weight in his hands; all he could think of was how he hadn’t noticed how _small_ the skull was, before.

How could he have thought this was from any animal but a young foal that had far too soon been taken from his mother?

Another light weight settled itself against him; Fai’s slender frame, tucking itself into Kurogane’s side. He rested his cheek on Kurogane’s shoulder, and in the midst of the sadness that had settled into Kurogane’s heart, Fai’s gentle smile was a healing balm.

“We found it.” Kurogane said first, his voice catching in the middle. Fai hummed in agreement, his hand running across Kurogane’s chest, loosening some of the tightness he felt all of a sudden.

“Now it goes home.”

They really ought to have waited for the weather to clear, but all three of them were fuelled by an unseen sense of urgency. The three of them trudged out onto the lake together, their cloaks whipping around in the blistering wind. Syaoran held the _Mari Lwyd_ in gloved hands, walking a pace ahead of the two adults.

Nothing happened when they reached the middle of the lake, on the spot where Rhiannon had stood the day before.

“Now what?” Kurogane said, shouting to be heard over the gale. He couldn’t sense anything in the air, no life or magic around them to speak of, and by the way Fai gathered them into a huddle, it was clear he wasn’t the only one getting colder by the second.

“С@%ш&$м ве^&£н@!”

“What?”

 _“_ _С@%_ _ш &$_ _м ве^ &£_ _н@_ _!”_ Fai repeated, louder, cupping his hands in front of his mouth.

“ _I can hear you_ , idiot, I just can’t-“

The wind changed direction, smothering the air in his throat. Unbalanced, Syaoran fell backwards into Kurogane’s chest.

“うご◯■△な◯!” Syaoran called out.

“М%i д@лж%ы п@ве%#уть #+зад!” Fai shouted insistently, and by the way he stared frantically up at the sky, Kurogane they didn’t have long before they would be in real trouble. He held on to Fai and Syaoran with a white-knuckled grip, his shoulder screaming in pain even through the blessed numbness of the cold, the three of them braced against the gale.

With effort, Syaoran lifted the _Mari Lwyd_ higher, so that the skull rose above their heads. He called out in words that flowed and rolled with a song-like quality, the language itself completely different to his own, and nothing that Kurogane recognised. His arms shook with the effort, and as one, Fai and Kurogane each wrapped a hand around the pole, lending Syaoran their joint strength. He came to the end of his speech and stood waiting while nothing happened – the growing storm continuing to swell in intensity. Tears streamed from Kurogane’s eyes, stubbornly kept open even with the bite of icy air.

In the wind, a voice answered. It came from nowhere and everywhere all at once, heard in Kurogane’s mind as much as through his ears. It was more words he didn’t understand, though they matched Syaoran’s in tone and tempo, and from the look in the kid’s eyes, _this_ is what he had been hoping for.

Syaoran sang out once more, new words this time but to the same rhythm, and answered almost immediately by the wind. For a third time Syaoran sang, the lyrics twisting and turning and dancing through the cacophony of sound, and before he could even finish, the entire world turned upside down.

The breath rushed out of his lungs as if he had been punched in the gut. The sky span, darkness falling in a sweep of the heavens, and the Earth was wrenched out from under him. He tried to shout on reflex but could make no sound-

And then it stopped.

Stunned, he blinked down at his feet on solid ice and sucked in deep lungfuls of needed oxygen. The force of whatever had just happened should have been enough to send the three of them careening across the ice and into the void of nothingness that had replaced the melted sky, but they remained standing- well, apart from Fai, who had dropped onto a knee (and was breathing hard, in great gasps, so he was at least alive).

“What…” Kurogane panted, “ _what the fuck_ was _that?_ ”

“I think-“ rasped Fai, lifting his face to the stars above, the light of the aurora burning in his blue eyes, “that we-… crossed over.”

“I didn’t know if it would work,” Syaoran said - why the hell was he not affected when Kurogane and Fai were both breathless?

“It was the ritual from the book, wasn’t it?” Fai surmised, drawing back up to his full height on wobbly legs.

“Ritual?” Kurogane echoed.

“Were you not paying attention, Kuro-wan?” Fai admonished. “To think, we got saddled with the ninja who doesn’t listen to important things.”

“It’s more a tradition than a ritual,” Syaoran said, before Kurogane could retaliate, “people visit other houses with the _Mari Lwyd_ and ask for entry by singing, and the people inside the house are supposed to reject the _Mari Lywd_ party’s request. The two parties sing back and forth, and if the _Mari Lwyd_ wins, they are allowed in. It- it was a long-shot,” he trailed off sheepishly, after his long explanation.

Long-shot or not, it had clearly worked. The wind had abated, leaving behind the same landscape draped in nighttime darkness and the aurora glowing overhead. They had crossed over, and brought the skull with them.

Almost as soon as he had finished the thought, the great gasping howls of the _cwm annwn_ echoed across the lake. Luckily, they were nowhere to be seen, and so they hopefully hadn’t seen the party of three yet either.

Not that Kurogane would be of much use if they did, he realised bitterly. ~~~~

“So where do we go now?” Fai asked, glancing around, hands on his hips. “ _Usually_ I would suggest following the source of magic, but everything is so saturated with magical energy here, I doubt we could even find a source.”

“We should probably avoid the _cwm annwn_ , too.”

Kurogane lifed the _Mari Lwyd_ from Syaoran’s hands with more care than he should have been capable of in his frustrated state of mind and begane stalking off in the opposite direction.

“Kurogane-san?” Syaoran said, confused.

“I think daddy wants to take it in turns being in charge,” Fai replied in a stage whisper as the two trotted along behind him.

“I can’t fight the wolves,” Kurogane admitted through clenched teeth, keeping up his relentless pace. “You two will have to use magic to keep them away.”

The sooner they found the horse-woman, the better.

As far as they walked, the terrifying sounds of the wolves followed. They soon treversed the entire length of the lake, past the fishing hut that Kurogane had destroyed on the night of their first aurora. Its roof was once more caved in, rubble littering the ice that surrounded it. They circled it and continued onwards.

Kurogane’s boot sank into the crisp snow on the banks of the lake and another vicious bark rattled his eardrums, louder than the others. He flinched bodily, his arms coming up as a defensive reflex.

“Oof, that made me jump!” Fai exclaimed with a fragile laugh. His memory jogged, Kurogane lowered his arms and relaxed his stance. It was fine. Louder was good. Somehow he kept forgetting that, when all of his instincts were wired towards louder sounds.

They came upon a fork in the path, both foreboding choices shrouded in darkness, shadowed by spindly-branched conifers.

“Which way, mage?”

“You’re asking _me_?”

“You get pulled to her, don’t you?”

Fai fussed about the crude way in which Kurogane had put it before he bothered to answer the question. “I already said there’s too much magic here for that, Kuro-mimi, but I can hold onto the _Mari Lwyd_ if it’s getting too heavy for you.”

“Fat chance,” Kurogane scoffed, “you just want an excuse to not do anything if we get into a fight.”

“ _Waah_ , so mean!”

“Let’s go this way,” Syaoran said, indicating towards the left. “I think this is the way back to that watchtower; perhaps we will see something from up there.”

Truthfully, either way looked like a terrible choice, but the howling noises were getting quieter. They had little choice but to keep going.

“Good thinking, Syaoran-kun! “ Fai cheered, as if they weren’t being stalked by sword-proof magical wolves. “Looks like the ninja-ish sense of direction runs in the family!”

“Will you knock it-“

Distracted, Kurogane didn’t hear the white wolf until it was upon him, knocking him to the ground, its huge maw biting down on his raised arm.

His _metal_ arm.

The wolf’s sharp teeth easily broke through the artificial skin, but the corded metal within was too dense for it to chew through. Kurogane tried shaking it off but it held fast, vibrating with a silent growl, and it yanked hard enough that for a moment Kurogane expected his arm to come clean off, or at least to split apart.

Luckily, neither happened. Two lashes of magic – one each from Fai and the kid - swept over him in a thunderous arc, forcing the wolf to release him and retreat. The fury on Fai’s face as he placed himself between Kurogane betrayed just how _terrifying_ he could be, yet when he spoke his voice was calm and measured.

“It’ll keep its distance if it has any sense,” Fai said, watching as the thing paced back and forth, its glowing eyes trained upon them. “Are you alright, Kuro-sama?”

“I’m fine.”

Kurogane _was_ fine, but his prosthetic was not. Several connections had been irreparably damaged and it wouldn’t straighten out, stuck in the position it had been in when the wolf had been upon him. Luckily he could still move the shoulder joint and tuck the folded arm to his chest, or it would have been really annoying.

“There’s more coming,” Syaoran warned, “the ones that were following us across the lake.”

“We’d better get moving then,” Fai said lowly.

Kurogane rose awkwardly to his feet, his free hand still clutching the _Mari Lwyd_ , the wolf’s eyes tracking him. It bared its teeth, hot saliva dripping from its mouth and leaving pinprick holes in the snow beneath it.

“You want this, huh?” Kurogane goaded, brandishing the _Mari Lwyd._ As he had suspected, the wolf followed it, its head turning as the horse’s skull moved. “Then _go get it!”_

In one movement, Kurogane wedged the skull in his bent arm and dislodged the stick from within, which he lobbed in an arcing overarm throw over the wolf’s head. The wolf dashed off in chase of the stick, and the skull remained undamaged and nestled safely in Kurogane’s care.

“Did… did that actually just happen?”

“Let’s leave before it figures it out,” Kurogane said, grabbing Fai by the hand and dragging him down the dark path, Syaoran hot on their heels.


	11. Pryderi

The path was overgrown and as dark as a starless night. Fai stumbled behind Kurogane, held upright only by the hand that Kurogane held tight in his own. Kurogane stopped and Fai crashed into his back with a hurried apology.

“Which way?” Kurogane barked. Fai couldn’t see anything in the oppressive darkness, could only hear their loud footfalls and panting, and the wind through the trees. Syaoran sped off down the track on the right hand side, barely breaking his pace.

“This way!” he bellowed, his footsteps muffled on the bark-littered ground underfoot.

“I can’t see a thing,” Fai complained, pulled along by Kurogane once more. “How do you know this is the right way?”

“I’m not sure, I just do!” Syaoran replied. The _cwm annwn_ barked, louder, and again Fai had to remind himself that it was a good thing.

Fai didn’t realise he had stopped until Kurogane pulled his arm again.

“What are you doing?” he barked, “we have to _go!_ ”

“I know, I just…” Fai trailed off. He had felt it again, the pull of magic, strong and ancient, even amongst the interference of the aurora. He couldn’t see a thing with his eyes, but the magic was sight enough. “This is definitely the right way.”

“Great, can you tell us that without stopping, next time?!”

The path twisted and turned like an endless maze, and somehow between Fai and Syaoran, they didn’t get lost or come across the wolves.

The three of them crashed into a clearing that was bathed in light, and Fai shielded his eyes with his hands. It was warm in here, somehow – much warmer than the boreal forest they had just sprinted through – as if the sun was shining down from above.

“My apologies, travellers,” came a womans’ voice. “I could not meet you at the crossing point for fear of losing this place.”

Fai squinted hard while his vision changed to adapt to the sudden shock of light. In the middle of the tiny clearing stood Rhiannon, her sword laid across a stone altar, and on her shoulder-

“ _Mokona_?” Syaoran blurted. Mokona jumped into his hands.

“Syaoran! You made it! You brought Pryderi back!”

“’Pryderi’?”

“My son,” said Rhiannon. She stepped through the carpet of moss in bare feet, as she had done upon the ice. She stood across from Kurogane, and though she barely came up to his chin in height, her presence towered over him. As delicately as he could without the use of his left arm, he passed the skull over to her.

“He was always such a spirited boy,” she murmured sorrofwully, cradling the skill in her hands.

“What happened to him?” Syaoran asked, “how did he go missing?”

Rhiannon turned and returned to the altar. Reverently, she laid the skull opon it, and stroked her fingertips across its crown.

“For a long time, I asked myself the same questions,” she eventually replied. “I did not know the answers until today.

“I knew that Pryderi had crossed the veil, as soon as it had happened.” Rhiannon continued. She sat beside the altar, half-facing the group of travellers. The three of them remained standing, but if it offended her, she didn’t show it. “He was always so fascinated with the people who lived around the lake, he would visit them whenever the boundaries between our worlds were thin.

“I did not think anything of it… until the night that he did not return.”

Rhiannon became still, contemplative. None of them spoke a word in the fragile silence. A shadow had settled over Kurogane’s face, and so Fai twined their fingers together in the secrecy of the hidden space between their bodies, squeezing. A warm breeze rustled through the broad-leafed trees above, and Kurogane gripped Fai’s hand tight in return.

“When even the dogs did not return with Pryderi, I began to suspect that the people of the lake were to blame… Yet, when _they_ had all gone, he still did not return. You four-” she eyed them all, in turn, and in that split second, Fai felt as if all of his deepest thoughts had been bared for her, only for the feeling to pass as soon as it had come. “-apart from the little one, are the first who have been able to pass between both planes with your selves intact.”

“Rhiannon is the one who brought Mokona here!” Mokona piped up, once they had been mentioned. “Mokona would not have been able to exist without magic, and so Rhiannon brought Mokona here for safety!”

“That was very kind of her,” Fai commented before he could stop himself.

“Kind of her to use you as a bargaining chip.” Kurogane finished, gruffly. Rhiannon, unruffled by the accusation, did not answer. Kurogane pressed on. “Why couldn’t you get the remains yourself, if you wanted them so badly?”

“Have you ever seen a horse with thumbs, sir? For I have not.”

Fai press his lips together in an effort to not laugh, and caught Kurogane scowling at him from the corner of his eye.

“Um, excuse me,” Syaoran started, ducking his head when Rhiannon’s attention turned to him. “Where is this place? You said you couldn’t leave it, but we saw you on the lake a few days ago...”

“This is my son’s place of rest.” Rhiannon replied. “I discovered it today, after searching for many months. If I had left to receive you, I feared it would be lost again – though I know now that this would not have been the case. During the aurora, my son had always lain here… and I was crossed over, in search of him. If I had stayed behind even once, I would have discovered him here.

“I see, now, that the people were not to blame for Pryderi’s death, nor the splitting of his soul. The truth is that they found a boy who was already dead, and they buried him though he was not one of their own. The next morning, they thought nothing of it when they found a dead foal in the same place. If I had not acted so carelessly and driven them away, they might have aided me. That is my mistake to bear.”

“Moving the bodies separately… split his soul?” Fai asked, the very thought chilling him to the bone, when Rhiannon paused. She nodded.

“And now, thanks to your efforts, my son is whole again.”

“Great,” Kurogane said flatly, “does that mean we can leave, finally?”

Fai elbowed him in the side, but Rhiannon smiled despite his rudeness. She rose again to her feet, her sword in hand, and the three of them tensed automatically, expecting an attack.

“You may leave, with this blessing;” said Rhiannon. “As thanks for your great deed, I grant you this sword. My wish for you three travellers is that, even when lost beyond all reach, may you again find one another.”

Rhiannon flipped the sword in one movement, and offered the hilt to Syaoran.


	12. Epilogue

Even the nights were warm, here.

The air was thick and balmy, the sharp tang of sea salt and perfumed hibiscus carrying on the breeze. The cicadas hidden in the nearby palm trees sang their overtures, underlaid by the sounds of the festival carrying on in the town.

Fai sat alone on the veranda, the paper screens on this side of the house pushed all the way open. The stars in the night sky were different here, as they were on every new world, and Fai observed them absently, his mind too occupied to speculate what shapes the constellations might take.

The cicadas fell silent, the symphony replaced with heavy footsteps.

“Are you drinking my booze?”

Fai hid a wicked grin in the lip of the glass. “I’m drinking the booze that _we_ bought with _our_ money.”

Kurogane kicked his sandals off haphazardly next to the raised deck, ignoring all of the other sandals paired neatly beside them and leaving them to land wherever. He was _such_ a monster, sometimes. Kurogane sat beside him, his back against one of the supporting beams, close enough to feel the warmth pooling between their bodies. Any other time, any other world, and Fai would be snuggling up beside him; Nirai Kanai was far too hot for that.

“Pour me one, then.”

“Sorry, Kurorin, this is the last of it,” Fai hummed, not sorry at all, “I thought it would be alright, seeing as you were drinking everything else dry at the festival.”

Kurogane gave him a withering look, but its effect was dampened by the flowers that were still tangled in his hair. If he didn’t know, Fai resolved not to be the one to tell him.

“That’s not all I was doing,” he grumbled. He lunged for the glass in Fai’s hands, and Fai rolled out of his reach.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Kuro-sama~” Fai teased, and when Kurogane pinned him half-in and half-out of the house, the tatami mats digging into his shoulders, Fai found he didn’t mind at all. He curled his free hand – the one not holding the glass and held flat to the floor under Kurogane’s forearm – in the front of Kurogane’s shirt and pulled him down, kissing him soundly. Kurogane wasn’t as surprised by this turnabout as Fai expected him to be, and he quickly found his mouth full of ninja tongue and and a knee between his legs. He gasped into the air.

“Be quiet,” Kurogane murmured into the skin beneath Fai’s ear, “the kid and the pork bun are asleep.”

“How would you know?” Fai breathed, his head tipping back against the floor, ponytail an uncomfortable lump in the base of his skull, “you just got back.”

“Shoes on the floor. Bedroom door closed. The _loud snoring_.”

“Ah, those powers of deduction again. You could almost be a ninj- _mmh_ -“

Kurogane’s rough hand cupped his jaw, turning his head up to angle the kiss differently, making the fit of their mouths flush. His other arm remained across Fai’s wrist, heavy and cutting off the circulation, but Fai _really_ didn’t care-

The cicadas fell silent once more all of a sudden, and a group of revellers made their way past, their voices loud in the still night. Kurogane was off of Fai in a heartbeat – they probably wouldn’t have seen anything from the main path if they had looked, but he was nothing if not private.

“Probably for the best,” Fai said, fanning the flush from his face, “it’s far too hot for- hey!”

Kurogane sat back on his haunches, the prize of Fai’s half-full glass in his hand. His victorious smirk soon morphed into a look of utter disgust upon tasting the liquor, however, and Fai snorted inelegantly.

“What the hell kind of crap have you put in this?”

“Bee crap,” Fai said blithely, gently taking the glass back, ”or, honey, as the rest of us call it.”

Kurogane huffed and sat back against the support beam as he had before. He had removed the headband at some point, and as another warm breeze brushed past, it played with his hair. Fai watched him tip his head back, looking up to the stars as Fai had been doing just minutes before. The quiet was comfortable, companionable. Kurogane frowned.

“Something on your mind, Kuro-tan?”

“You tell me,” Kurogane replied, regarding him. “You were the one sat here alone.”

“Hmm, touché.” Fai allowed, smiling. “I can always count on you to notice little things.”

Fai finished his drink, the glass thumping down on the mats. He was still learning to be more forthcoming, and it did not come naturally to him. The best he had was being more obvious that he wanted to talk, so that Kurogane would give him the last little nudge.

Kurogane did not push him further, he simply sat. Watched.

“I’ve been thinking about what Rhiannon said…” Fai started, idly rolling the edge of the empty glass along the mat. “Or, something Mokona said.”

“That was a few months ago,” Kurogane commented evenly. Fai shrugged.

“I know, it’s just… bothering me, I suppose. Mokona is sustained by magic, and so Rhiannon kept Mokona in the veil because otherwise they would perish.”

“According to the white thing.”

“Right.”

“So?”

“It’s just…” Fai trailed off. He felt incredibly stupid about agonising over a throwaway comment, but he couldn’t let it drop, regardless of how hard he tried. It was probably nothing, and he was here bringing up the past again. He sagged. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re wondering why you weren’t kept with the white thing too, right?” Kurogane said. “You said to the kid that if the magic didn’t exist at all you’d be dead, so if the white thing was telling the truth and the kid was right after all, then why didn’t you die?” He turned to look at Fai, an eyebrow raised, “Right?”

“…Right…” Fai said slowly, brows furrowed, “Kuro-sama… have you been thinking about it too?”

“It’s crossed my mind, once or twice,” he said, “I guessed you were being dramatic, but… you’d really die, if your magic was gone?”

Hesitantly, Fai nodded. Kurogane’s mouth tightened into a thin line, and his eyes flicked down to the empty glass in Fai’s hand.

“So… What does this mean?”

“That’s what’s bothering me,” Fai replied, “my eyes weren’t… _yellow_ , were they?”

“No.”

Strangely, the information didn’t loosen the knot in Fai’s stomach. There still wasn’t a good alternative explanation for how he had survived without any magic for so long, when really, he should have perished as soon as he stepped foot into that world.

“So…” Kurogane started, “your magic didn’t get rid of the vampire blood, after all.”

“I don’t know,” Fai murmured. “Perhaps. I can’t… I haven’t felt _thirsty_ , or anything like that. Your blood has smelled stronger to me, since then, but I just thought that was a side-effect. Like a scar, or something, I never thought…” he trailed off, his babbling coming to a sudden end. “I’m sorry.”

“What the hell for?”

Fai picked a frayed edge in the mats with a fingernail, the glass forgotten beside him. “You’re still stuck with it. With me.”

“So, nothing’s changed- _no,_ ” he said, talking over Fai when he opened his mouth to argue. “I didn’t make that wish thinking either of us would get out of it. It doesn’t matter to me if you need my blood to live or if you don’t – I’m stuck with you, anyway, because _I choose to be_.”

“Kuro-sama,” Fai said, once his brain was working again, his voice cracking, “that was very romantic.”

“Yeah, well,” Kurogane grumbled, finally averting his intense gaze, “if there’s no booze, I’m going to bed.”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t _any_ booze.”

Kurogane stopped, halfway across the room.

“I’m listening.”

“I’ll tell you where I hid it, _if-“_ Fai paused, pushing his luck until the look on Kurogane’s face became murderous. “You beat me at cards.”

“Is that all?” Kurogane scoffed, “what’s in it for you?”

“Hmm… I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

-end-


End file.
